which
bitterly antagonized the Brownlow administration in every issue of
government, the principles which it supported (despite the bad qualities
inherent in its organization) gave it a success altogether unproportioned
to the means employed. Notwithstanding it was outlawed by act of the
Legislature, and a price set upon the heads of its membership, it
continued to flourish long after Brownlowism had ceased to be an element
in the politics of the State. But, after a comparatively uneventful
history during the years which intervened, in the summer of 1874 a rash
act of one of its Dens, located in Gibson county, in the western portion
of the State, operated such a loss of influence to the body throughout the
State, that it at once became ineffective; and here, in the autumn of this
year, the latest remnant of the organization on Southern soil fell into
disintegration, and ceased to exist.

A brief history of this transaction may prove not uninteresting to the
reader, as it was one of the most daring and venal of all the acts of
these regulators, and influenced national affairs as has no other local
event within the present century. In a remote settlement in the eastern
portion of this county, a party of negroes had organized themselves into a
military company, which not only conducted night drills and made
occasional raids into the surrounding settlements, but threatened that at
no distant day they would devastate the neighboring country, and prove the
heralds of an insurrection that would give the Southern country into the
hands of their race. The whites in the immediate vicinity bore their
midnight levies with tolerable resignation, and would, doubtless, have
dismissed their taunts as meaningless, if these had not been supported by
acts which left no doubt as to the warlike quality of their designs. They
had proceeded so far as to procure arms and ammunition, and nominate a day
for the threatened outbreak before any interference was attempted, and
when this was finally resolved upon, it was effected quietly by arresting
some of the more prominent conspirators at their homes. These parties were
incarcerated in the county jail at Trenton, and though the feeling of
indignation ran high in every portion of the county, it is believed that a
resolution to drop the subject here, or submit to such meagre satisfaction
as it was in the power of the courts to render in such cases, was general.
Such peaceful and eminently wise coun