The policy was considered a just one he effect was beneficial as far as my experience goes. When I first went to Lebanon there were quite a number of what I call rabid rebels in the neighborhood who were exasperating the people very much, some of whom I imprisoned and some of them I sent through the lines. I warned them, hoverer, by public notice that all who would behave themselves like good citizens should be protected. The policy I pursued at Lebanon had the effect of ridding the community of some very bad men and developed a very strong loyal sentiment. I had the approval of some of the best men on that part of Tennessee of the course I was pursuing; among others I would mention Ex-Governor Campbell, Mr. Jordan Stokes, and Colonel William [B.] Stokes. The same policy, having given the citizens notice that I was not there to war upon unarmed people, but to protect all who in their civil pursuit behaved themselves. After giving this warning to them I treated the people kindly, remedied some wrongs they were suffering, protected them from the marauding of the teamsters and trains that were passing through there, who were depredating very largely upon the people. I published an order forbidding any depredations upon the citizens, forbidding them from taking their property except by my authority, as I was instructed by General Buell's order No. 13.

In my intercourse with the people there I found the masses had been largely duped by their leaders in being led to believe that our purpose in coming into Tennessee was to take away all their civil rights and destroy their domestic relations. I permitted the country people to come into the town freely, in order that I might communicate with them more freely, and I discovered that while they were generally rebels they had been made so by falsehood. The policy I pursued made a practical contradiction to what had been taught them by their leaders, and the result in a short time was that they gained confidence in my course of procedure, and they themselves proposed that we should have what they called a county meeting, in order that all the people might hear my policy from my own lips.

I called a county meeting at their suggestion and invited the citizens to meet me at Pulaski. I was very agreeably surprised to find that we had a very large audience of citizens form every part of the country. I spoke to them in their court-house and assured them as I already had done by my order. The result of the meeting was that many of them declared themselves openly in favor of the restoration of the Union, and they themselves called another meeting of the people in favor of the restoration of the Union, and they themselves called another meeting of the people of Pulaski. At the second meeting Governor Neil S. Brown made them a speech, in which he publicly declared that his policy was changed and that he was then Union man. He explained to them the impositions that had been practiced upon them, and at the end of the younger portion of the community in private conversation with me explained how they had been led away by the rebels assuring them that we were not only come there to take away their property, but to ravish their wives and daughters and to everything else that could be suggested that was bad. They expressed fears that some leading men in the community who were bitter secessionists would mark them and have them punished by the Southern Confederacy.

To relieve these fears I summoned these gentlemen before me, frankly told them the apprehensions of the community, and insisted upon it that they should take the oath of allegiance and commit themselves in that way, so as to relieve the apprehensions of the community, or leave Pulaski and go to the Southern Confederacy. I think I summoned twenty of them, and perhaps all but six took the oath of allegiance and publicly proclaimed themselves for the Union. The six I sent through to General Beauregard. I think two of, there was no longer any hesitation in declaring their Union sentiments, and I am satisfied that four-fifths of all the men in the country-fully four-returned to their loyalty and would have been glad re reconstruct the Union.

I advised Governor Johnson of the state of feeling and urged him to reorganize the State government by a popular election. We had considerable correspondence about the matter. He expressed great satisfaction at the result of my demonstrations at Pulaski, but declined to reconstruct the State government until all the rebels were out of Tennessee. He adopted another policy of mine and authorized me to proceed in it, which was to make the citizens of Pulaski reimburse the loyal men there whose goods had been seized in a rebel raid under Morgan, then Colonel Morgan. I had a commission organized, damages assessed, and made the citizens pay the money over. I believe that if the same policy had been pursued throughout Tennessee the loyalty of the people of Tennessee, which id overshadowed by the fears of the Southern leaders, would have been developed throughout the whole State. The people at