The Brownsville Raids

The Brownsville Raids. “They burnt down a good part of Brownsville”. Brownsville's courthouse square resembled a battleground as residents and businesses suffered from repeated raids during the war., Confederate raiders arrested two cotton brokers and four other Brownsville residents on July 25, 1862. A Memphis newspaper reported, “The Confederates hunted up all the cotton in Brownsville, and made the citizens assist in cutting open the bales, after which the torch was applied,” consuming 300 bales., On August 29, 1863, fifty guerrillas – ten “known to be Federal deserters” – invaded the square and told merchants “that unless the stores were immediately opened, they would burn them up.” They took “boots, all sorts of dry goods and clothing” and then offered to pay with Confederate money., A month later, the square was “the scene of another disgraceful raid” under George Allen, whom a Memphis newspaper described as the “type of the class of men of which the guerillas are. … They care very little for the success of the Southern Confederacy, their sole object being to plunder the weak and helpless. We trust some means will yet be devised to cheat West Tennessee of the thieving bands which infest it.”, In March 1864, Union Col. Fielding Hurst led his men here and “burned 3 establishments belonging to 3 of the best Union men about Brownsville.” Local plantation owner and attorney Edward J. Read complained to Military Governor Andrew Johnson, “Is that any way for him or any Federal officer to do?” Read warned that “unless a different policy be pursued this war will last 30 years.”, [Sidebar] , During the war, Sarah Madison Taylor, age 19, wrote in her diary of one of Col. Fielding Hurst's raids on March 14, 1864: “Heard that old Hurst with his command was in town destroying and stealing everything. … We were up till late at night watching the fires, for they burnt down a good part of Brownsville, and strange to say, all the property they burnt belonged to Union men.”, Captions (left to right): , . Haywood County Courthouse, ca. 1900 – Courtesy Lynn Shaw , . Col. Fielding Hurst Courtesy www.hurstnation.com , . (Sarah Madison Taylor) Courtesy Rebecca D. Thornton, Taylor's great-granddaughter