Bummer’s descendants have related the violence that gripped Tennessee after the Civil War. The state was a shambles, farms were destroyed, families displaced, civil order and law enforcement had all but disappeared. Bands of disgruntled Confederates roamed the rural countryside terrorizing and pillaging Union and Southern sympathizers alike. The Civil War was officially over, but very little had changed for the home folks of Sevier County. Vigilante groups were formed, for the express purpose of protecting family and farm, but these were more of a reactionary force, chasing an illusive menace, with few results. Union Army veterans organized an unofficial Home Militia that provided the only tactical defense against the perpetrations of the raiders and outlaws.
In 1865-66 the Ku Klux Klan was originally organized in Pulaski, Tennessee, by six Confederate veterans. The Klan grew quickly and became a terrorist organization. It attracted former Civil War generals such as Nathan Bedford Forrest. The movement spread beyond Tennessee and included law enforcement officials as well as common criminals throughout the South. The Ku Klux Klan’s objective was to intimidate “carpetbaggers and scalawags”, whip, murder and rape black men and women and white supporters of Emancipation, suppress Republican vote, revive the planter aristocracy, and promote white supremacy.
The terror by night and the intimidation of rural folks in Tennessee has ceased. However, it took over 100 years to achieve any semblance of peace and tranquility for Bummer’s kin. The spectre of racial supremacy, neo-confederacy and the lost cause still shadows the existence of residents in East Tennessee.
Bummer
