Scott County’s secession from Tennessee
In 1861, Scott County Court voted to formally secede from Tennessee and form the Free & Independent State of Scott. The move came after Scott Countians voted to reject secession by the largest majority of any county in Tennessee. The Free & Independent State of Scott was never recognized by Nashville or the federal government, but it was not until 1986 that the Tennessee General Assembly ceremoniously voted to accept Scott County back into the state.
Precursors to secession
By the time Scott County had been formed from parts of Anderson, Campbell, Morgan and Fentress counties by act of the Tennessee General Assembly in 1849, abolition of slavery had already become a major topic in the United States. Just four years later, in 1854, Democrats in Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which opened the Kansas and Nebraska territories to slavery and effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise that had been adopted in 1820.
As a response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, angry Whigs met in Ripon, Wisc. to form a new political party with a primary purpose of opposing the expansion of slavery in the western territories. They called themselves the Republican Party.
Six years later, in 1860, Illinois attorney Abraham Lincoln was nominated by the Republican Party to run for president, and later won election despite fierce opposition in the South. He did not even appear on the ballot in most of the slave states, including Tennessee. (Nevertheless, one man in Scott County — Shadrack “Shade” Lewallen — wrote in Lincoln for president on his 1860 ballot.) He had not campaigned as an abolitionist, but made it clear that he opposed the institution of slavery and, as president, would not allow the expansion of slavery. War became inevitable.
Tennessee was divided into three grand divisions. In West Tennessee and Middle Tennessee, slavery was very prominent. It was much less prominent, however, in East Tennessee. While Scott County straddled the boundary between the Middle and East grand divisions, it was located on the Cumberland Plateau, which was largely unsuitable to farming and therefore a region where few slaves were owned.
In fact, Scott County was the only county in Tennessee where there were fewer than 100 slaves owned in 1860. There were 59 slaves in Scott County in 1860. The total population was 3,519. Slaves represented 1.7% of the population. By comparison, there were 120 slaves (3.6% of the population) in Morgan County, 187 slaves (3.7%) in Fentress County, 366 slaves (5.5%) in Campbell County, and 583 slaves (8.3%) in Anderson County. In many Middle Tennessee counties, more than 50% of the population were slaves. In some West Tennessee counties, more than 60% of the population was enslaved.
With the exception of a few sparsely settled counties in the mountains of Virginia, slaves made up a smaller percentage of the population in Scott County than in any county in any of the slave states.
Because there were so few slaves in East Tennessee, the eastern grand division as a whole was opposed to secession and wanted to remain with the Union.
The secession votes
Tennesseans first voted on the issue of secession in February 1861, rejecting it by a vote of 68,000 to 59,000. In Scott County, the vote was 29 in favor of succession versus 485 opposed to secession.
Tennessee Gov. Isham Harris, who had been first elected in 1857 and re-elected in 1859, was highly critical of President Lincoln and a staunch proponent of secession. He continued to call for Tennesseans to secede and join the Confederate States of America. The Battle of Fort Sumter in April 1861, which saw Confederate soldiers surround and fire on the fort, still under Union control despite South Carolina’s secession, and Lincoln’s subsequent call for states to provide troops to squash the rebellion — including a request for 50,000 men from Tennessee — turned public sentiment in the Volunteer State. Harris called the state legislature back into session, and the legislature voted to put secession on the ballot again.
West Tennessee voted heavily in favor of secession, as before, while East Tennessee voted heavily against secession, as before. However, Middle Tennessee broke in favor of secession in the second vote. The final tally of the June 8, 1861 referendum saw 88% of Middle Tennesseans vote for secession, and Tennessee became the 11th and final state to join the Confederacy.
In Scott County, Congressman Horace Maynard and Senator Andrew Johnson had visited on June 4, 1861, four days before the secession vote, and delivered fiery speeches on the steps of the courthouse in Huntsville. Both men were vehemently opposed to secession. Johnson would become the only U.S. Senator from the Confederacy who did not resign his seat in Congress.
In response to the pleas of Maynard and Johnson, Scott Countians voted 521-19 (97%) to reject secession. It was the largest margin of any county in Tennessee. In Morgan County, 93% of voters were against secession. In Fentress County, 84% of voters were against it.
Scott County Sheriff Bailey Buttram signed the county’s secession vote tally and delivered it to Nashville via a horseback ride to the state capital.
The Greeneville Convention
Delegates from across East Tennessee met in Greeneville for a convention, where it was decided to petition Gov. Harris and the state legislature to let East Tennessee break away and form its own state. Not surprisingly, the request was denied. Scott County was not represented at the Greeneville convention but appointed a proxy.
Scott County’s secession
“East Tennesseans stood their ground. They proved to the overwhelming majority of Tennesseans their loyalty to the Union. East Tennesseans had played important roles in helping to make the United States; they were not going to be a party to its destruction — no never!” — Esther Sharp Sanderson, County Scott and Its Mountain Folk
At a meeting of Scott County Court in Huntsville, an old farmer is said to have jumped to his feet and proclaimed, “If the goddamn state of Tennessee can secede from the Union, then Scott County can secede from the state of Tennessee.”
Scott County did just that. Members of County Court voted unanimously to secede from Tennessee and form the Free and Independent State of Scott.
Books of minutes from Scott County Court meetings were confiscated by Confederate soldiers when Scott County’s Union regiment lost the Battle of Huntsville in 1862. They were never recovered, and thus, there is no official record of Scott County’s secession.
However, the vote to secede was well documented by historians. Sharp Sanderson told it like this in her book, County Scott and Its Mountain Folk:
“The irate members of the County Court, all Union sympathizers, angered by the withdrawal of the State of Tennessee from the Union, made a motion that Scott County should then and there declare itself free and independent from the State of Tennessee and that it should thereafter be called The Independent State of Scott. It was passed unanimously by a roll call vote, and all members voted unanimously and affixed their signatures to a motion that the minutes of their meeting be carried by hand and delivered in person to the Secretary of State in Nashville.”
The state’s response
Isham Harris, Tennessee’s pro-slavery governor, had successfully pushed the Volunteer State to secede and was incensed by Scott County’s blatant defiance. He sent a regiment of Confederate troops to Huntsville with orders to arrest and hang members of the county court who had declared the county’s independence.
Things came to a head in August 1862, when Confederate soldiers clashed with Union troops in the Battle of Huntsville. The Rebels won the battle in a rout, and seized the town. They were unable to capture any members of the county court; the squires had gone into hiding. But they ransacked the courthouse.
Absent official minutes to tell the story of Scott County’s secession, no one is sure of the exact date it occurred. In his 2001 book, Scott County in the Civil War, Paul Roy speculated that the vote may have taken place in December 1861, when county court formed the Scott County Home Guard to protect against Confederate guerrillas. It has also been speculated that the vote took place in June 1861 — weeks, if not days, after Tennessee seceded from the Union.
In her book, Sanderson wrote that James W. Baker found the minutes from the 1861 court meeting before they were destroyed in a courthouse fire in 1946. However, it is widely believed that the minutes were taken or destroyed by Confederate soldiers who ransacked the courthouse following the Battle of Huntsville. That speculation is backed by a recently-discovered book of court minutes dating from April 1866 to February 1870. In it, there is a reference made to Scott County’s wartime records being destroyed and needing to be re-transcribed.
Aftermath
Neither Tennessee or the United States ever acknowledged the Free and Independent State of Scott, but it was not until 1986 that Scott County formally rejoined Tennessee.
That year, as part of the Homecoming ’86 festivities that marked the 200th anniversary of Tennessee’s statehood, Scott County Executive Dwight Murphy drafted a resolution seeking readmittance to the Volunteer State. It passed by an 11-2 vote of County Commission. In Nashville, Gov. Lamar Alexander signed legislation passed by the General Assembly that welcomed Scott County back into the state.
Read More: Enclave: Scott County in the Civil War