Portrait and Biography of Parson Brownlow, the Tennessee Patriot

In the summer of 1861, a Tennessee preacher and newspaper editor was dragged from his home, imprisoned by Confederate authorities, and threatened with death. His crime: refusing to abandon his loyalty to the Union. This is his story, told in real time by the man himself. William Gannaway Brownlow, known to all as Parson Brownlow, was neither soldier nor politician when the Civil War erupted. He was a Methodist circuit rider and the fiery editor of the Knoxville Whig, a paper that railed against secession with such ferocity that Confederate authorities decided he needed silencing. Rather than flee or recant, Brownlow dared the Confederacy to execute him, transforming his prison cell into a pulpit for Unionism. Written in 1862 while the war still raged, this autobiography reads less like history and more like a dispatch from the front lines of conscience. Brownlow's prose crackles with the same defiance that kept him alive. For readers interested in the Civil War's overlooked fault lines, East Tennessee's fierce Unionist majority, the conflict between faith and confederacy, the battle for the soul of a region, this book is an indispensable primary source from one of the war's most improbable heroes.