In the war that sometimes pitted brother against brother, probably no other section of the country was more divided than eastern Tennessee. In June of 1861, after South Carolina troops had earlier fired on Ft. Sumter, Tennessee voted by a majority of a little over two-to-one, for seccession, but East Tennesseans voted more than two-to-one agaist seccession!

In February of 1861, when the first vote was held, East Tennessee had succeeded in defeating the pro-seccessionest forces of Tennessee Governor Isham Harris, and prevented a proposed seccession convention. That victory proved to be short-lived.

Now that Tennessee was firmly on its way out of the Federal Union, some of the pro-Union delegates to the earlier convention, met at Greeneville, Tennessee, in an unsuccessful attempt to keep their counties "neutral." One of those delegates was the Reverend William Blount Carter, from upper East Tennessee. After the failure of the "neutrality plan", Reverend W.B. Carter headed for Kentucky, where his two brothers, Colonel James Carter, and Navy Lieutenant (later acting Army Brigadier General) Samuel P. Carter, had set up a recruiting and training camp near Barbourville, called "Camp Andy Johnson." The Carter brothers were in the process of forming the First and Second East Tennessee Volunteer Infantry Regiments, from East Tennessee volunteers who were quietly leaving their home State. The young volunteers traveled northward, mostly at night across the mountains into Kentucky, to escape what they considered the oppression of Confederate rule.

While in Kentucky, Reverend W.B. Carter met with Union Army Brigadier General George H. Thomas. Carter presented to General Thomas, a plan to burn the railroad bridges in East Tennessee, to cut Confederate troop and supply transportation, between Richmond and the western part of the Confederacy. General Thomas was impressed by the plan, and wrote a letter of introduction for Carter, to Major General George B McClellan in Washington, D.C. That letter is shown here:

HEADQUARTERS    
                             Camp Dick Robinson, September 30, 1861

Maj. Gen. GEORGE B. McCLELLAN
        Commanding Department of the Potomac
        GENERAL:   I have just had a conversation with Mr. W.B. Carter of Tennessee on the subject of the destruction of the grand trunk railroad through that state. He assures me that he can have it done if the Government will intrust him with a small sum of money to give confidence to the persons to be employed to do it. It would be one of the most important services that could be done for the country, and I most earnestly hope that you will use your influence with the authorities in furtherance of his plans which he will submit to you together with the reasons for doing the work.
I am sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
GEO. H. THOMAS
Brigadier-General, U.S. Volunteers, Commanding

On the strength of that introduction, General McClellan arranged a meeting for Carter, with President Abraham Lincoln, Secretary of State Seward, and himself (McClellan). President Lincoln gave his blessing to the plan, and promised that a Union army invasion from Kentucky into Tennessee, would immediately follow the burning of the bridges. He told Carter that the Union men who carried out the bridge-burning, and their families, would be protected by the army of the United States. The Reverend W.B. Carter returned to Kentucky, flush with the success of his meeting with the President of the United States. He immediately began the planning for the secret return to East Tennessee, to burn the railroad bridges of the East Tennessee and Virginia, and the East Tennessee and Georgia lines. The two lines met at Knoxville, Tennessee. The plan was to burn all of the bridges on the same night. The date selected was the night of November 8-9, 1861.

One of the volunteers who had crossed the mountains to Kentucky to enlist in the Union Army, was David Fry, a native of Greene County, Tennessee. Fry reported to Camp Dick Robinson, Kentucky, on September 23, 1861, and was mustered as a Captain at Somerset, Kentucky, on September 28, 1861, commanding Company F of the 2nd Tennessee Volunteer Infantry Regiment. After Carter returned to Kentucky, he chose Captain Fry as one of the two men to accompany him on the secret mission to East Tennessee. As the three men left Kentucky to slip back into their East Tennessee homeland, to carry out the dangerous mission, everything was in place for the immediate invasion of East Tennessee, by the Union Army in southern Kentucky. Captain David Fry had no way to know that those plans were to change shortly after he left Kentucky. The invasion of East Tennessee was indefinitely postponed without the knowledge of President Abraham Lincoln. The decision was made by Union Army generals in Kentucky, after a thorough licking by Confederate General Felix Zollicoffer. Carter and Fry were unaware that nothing stood between them and the full wrath of the Confederate Army in East Tennessee, once the bridges were burned.

In the late evening (after dark) of November 8, 1861, the pro-Union men of "Pottertown", began to gather at the new brick home of Jacob Harmon, Jr., and his wife Malinda (Self) Harmon, on the pre-arranged date, to burn the Lick Creek Bridge of the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad Company. . . . . just as it had been planned back at Camp Dick Robinson, Kentucky. . .only days before. Here we will let the official dispatches written at the time, and later published in the "Official Records of the War of the Rebellion" take over the telling of the story.

Some personal family information and a few photographs have been added to those accounts so that one can get a closer feel for the terrible tragedies which befell the unfortunate families of "Pottertown".

Most of the information contained here comes from the "Official Records", with a few details furnished by the contemporary accounts of William G. "Parson" Brownlow, the fiery pro-Union Editor of the Knoxville, Tennessee Whig newspaper. "Parson" Brownlow was himself imprisoned at the Knoxville jail, for anti-Confederate writings in his newspaper, and for his vehement public speeches against the Confederacy. From his jail cell, he was an eyewitness to much of the cruelty displayed by the Rebel authorities against the captured bridge-burners.

It was through his observations and writing, that much of the story of the "Pottertown" bridge-burners was preserved for later generations. Now we will begin with the "rest of the story."

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