Tried Men and True, or Union Life in Dixie (Hardcover)

From the Publisher: Thomas Jefferson Cypert (1827-1918) was a staunch Union man in one of the most Confederate areas of Tennessee, and became Captain of Company A in the 2nd Regiment, Mounted Infantry, U.S. Tennessee Volunteers. After the war, he served at least one term in the Tennessee State Senate. He wrote this manuscript for publication to defend his stance and recount his wartime experiences. It was never published, and has existed in his family in manuscript form until now.| This work is a remarkable account of the resistance to the Confederacy by a group of Union loyalists in southwestern Tennessee, not an area usually associated with Union sympathy. The author of the manuscript was often forced to go into hiding to avoid arrest or worse, and became part of a loose anti-secession network for mutual aid and support. Eventually Cypert and other Union men from his region were formed into a U.S. military unit which skirmished frequently with CSA units and home guards. A particularly interesting section of the manuscript recounts Cypert’s experiences after he was captured and imprisoned in a POW camp near Hillsboro, Alabama. Expecting he would be killed when transferred to a larger camp in Tuscaloosa, he escaped from his guards and made his way home with the assistance of local Union sympathizers. We believe this to be an important addition to understanding the local tensions in the deep South between those who embraced and those who rejected secession even in areas considered strongly imbued with Confederate support. The first-person evidence of treatment of the ‘disloyal’ by Confederate forces is an additional benefit of the work.