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Tennessee Confederate Broadside

TENNESSEE - Felix K. ZOLLICOFFER. To the People of East Tennessee!

Knoxville: 7 August 1861. Small broadside or handbill (245 x 190 mm). Text in two columns. Signed in print by Brigadier General Zollicoffer. Contemporary ink inscription on verso concerning an 1862 chancery court decision. Condition: folds. unrecorded tennessee confederate broadside. The text of the broadside begins: "In assuming command of the military forces of this division, I cannot forbear and earnest appeal to all who have preferred the old Union, no longer to resist the recent decisions at the ballot-box by overwhelming majorities of the people of Tennessee. The Military authorites are not here to offend or injure the people, but to insure peace to their homes, by repelling invasion and preventing the introduction of the horrors of civil war." Tennessee was the final border state to secede from the Union and Zollicoffer received a commission as a Brigadier General in the Provisional Army of Tennessee in June 1861. His initial orders were to repress pro-Union sentiment in East Tennessee, explaining the reason for the publication of this broadside. Following his receipt of his commission as a Brigadier General in the Confederate Army (one week prior to this broadside), he led a force through the Cumberland Gap toward Central Kentucky and saw action at the Battles of Barbourville (19 September 1861) and Wildcat Mountain (21 October 1861). Zollicoffer would be killed at the Battle of Mill Springs (19 January 1862).