In west Tennessee and in portions of middle Tennessee there was a deep seated hostility to Union men, and especially to Southern men who had served in the Union army.
General Thomas said of them: “They are more unfriendly to Union men natives of the State of Tennessee or of the South, who have been in the Union army, than they are to men of Northern birth.”
At that time the contract system of labor had been introduced, and the contracts were regarded as binding both by whites and blacks.
General Thomas advised the admission of Tennessee into the Union as a State, and his advice was acted upon favorably by its admission in the summer of that year. His recommendations were based upon the facts that Tennessee had “repudiated the rebel debt, had abolished slavery, had adopted the Constitutional amendment upon that subject, had passed a franchise law prohibiting from voting every man who had been engaged in the rebellion” and had “passed a law allowing negroes to testify.”
His opinion of the four other States of his command was not as favorable. “I have received communications from various persons in the South that there was an understanding among the rebels and perhaps organizations formed or forming, for the purpose of gaining as many advantages for themselves as possible; and I have heard it also intimated that these men are very anxious and would do all in their power to involve the United States in a foreign war, so that if a favorable opportunity should occur, they might then again turn against the United States.”
At the end of his first examination he gave this opinion as the result of his experience:
Question: “In what could those advantages consist in breaking up the government?”
Answer: “They would wish to be recognized as citizens
