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With thanks to Elizabeth Clark’s advice, I would like to begin, from time to time, posting excerpts from the diary of my great-great grandfather. I think that you may enjoy his accounts of life on the home front during the war and into reconstruction. Williamson Younger lived in McLemoresville and Atwood in West Tennessee. Though a tailor by trade, he also owned and operated a large family farm that lay in both Gibson and Carroll counties. He was a Cumberland Presbyterian, a life-long democrat, and a slave owner, although when reading the diary, it would seem that he detested the institution. Quite conflicted was he. He and his wife Louisa had ten children, three of the daughters marrying Presbyterian ministers. Two of their sons, William A, and James W, were enlisted in Co. G, “The Carroll Invincibles”, 22nd Tennessee Infantry, later becoming Company G of the 12th Consolidated Tennessee Infantry. William A was captured at Missionary Ridge and died at Rock Island prison. While being a diary, the record also served as Williamson’s will. His accounts of raids upon his home by both sides, his political views, and his plans for the division of his estate have proven fascinating to me. I hope you will indulge me in sharing some of my family history with you. Please let me know if I seem to have “overstayed” my welcome. I will post portions of it as time allows, and it is with great thanks to as well as the permission of the West Tennessee Historical Society that I am able to share.
[I]1861- The burdens of war bear heavily on me having cost me much in fitting out my two sons besides lots of time in preparing clothes for them and for other soldiers. The government has not furnished my sons with anything in the way of clothing, except to J.W; a roundabout and one pair of coarse jean pants, and to each one, a coarse white blanket. Both caught measles while in the army and William A. came home with the measles and took typhoid fever and was confined 8 weeks. James W. had the measles in camp. Wm. A. left for camp October 13, 1861, after he recovered. I have never been a Secessionist. I never voted the Secession ticket. When the last vote was taken on whether Tennessee would secede, I did not vote at al for the reason I did not think I knew what was best. I believe our representatives in Congress and our Southern delegates in the Charleston convention, together with outsiders and the never-to-be-forgotten great national Democratic Party, have been the cause and will be held accountable for the blood shed in this unholy war. I have ever believed the great political questions that were made a pretense to divide this government could have been settled, if the southern leaders had been willing. Perhaps it is all right. We need chastising for our wickedness. No people of which modern history gives account, have so abused privileges and liberties. I mean both North and South. God is now chastising us. I believe we will never have a government of any permanency, North or South, unless we train our children better from the cradle. The voters of these once United States are in my humble judgment are incompetent of self-government. The present demonstrates the fact. No rotten-hearted person prospers, even in this world, long at a time. As with individuals so with the nations. God, help us to purge ourselves.[/I]
Scott Bumpus
[I]1861- The burdens of war bear heavily on me having cost me much in fitting out my two sons besides lots of time in preparing clothes for them and for other soldiers. The government has not furnished my sons with anything in the way of clothing, except to J.W; a roundabout and one pair of coarse jean pants, and to each one, a coarse white blanket. Both caught measles while in the army and William A. came home with the measles and took typhoid fever and was confined 8 weeks. James W. had the measles in camp. Wm. A. left for camp October 13, 1861, after he recovered. I have never been a Secessionist. I never voted the Secession ticket. When the last vote was taken on whether Tennessee would secede, I did not vote at al for the reason I did not think I knew what was best. I believe our representatives in Congress and our Southern delegates in the Charleston convention, together with outsiders and the never-to-be-forgotten great national Democratic Party, have been the cause and will be held accountable for the blood shed in this unholy war. I have ever believed the great political questions that were made a pretense to divide this government could have been settled, if the southern leaders had been willing. Perhaps it is all right. We need chastising for our wickedness. No people of which modern history gives account, have so abused privileges and liberties. I mean both North and South. God is now chastising us. I believe we will never have a government of any permanency, North or South, unless we train our children better from the cradle. The voters of these once United States are in my humble judgment are incompetent of self-government. The present demonstrates the fact. No rotten-hearted person prospers, even in this world, long at a time. As with individuals so with the nations. God, help us to purge ourselves.[/I]
Scott Bumpus
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