In 1931, when the Nashville Banner conducted a
survey to determine the “Greatest Tennesseans”
to date, the state’s Confederate “War Governor,”
Isham G. Harris (1818–1897), ranked tenth on the list,
behind such famous Tennesseans as Andrew Jackson, James K.
Polk, Andrew Johnson, and Nathan Bedford Forrest. In 1976,
however, when the Banner once again conducted the
survey, Harris did not appear in even the top twenty-five.
The result of fading memories and the death of the generation
that knew him, the glaring omission of Harris’s name
still seemed striking and undeserved. In Isham G. Harris
of Tennessee, Sam Davis Elliott offers the first published
biography of this overlooked leader, establishing him as the
most prominent Tennessean in the Confederacy and a dominating
participant in nineteenth-century Tennessee politics.
Harris grew up on the frontier in Middle Tennessee, the youngest
in a large family. He left home as a teenager, and found and
lost a fortune in the boom and bust times of the 1830s in
Mississippi and West Tennessee. Admitted to the bar in 1841,
he enjoyed almost immediate success as an attorney due to
his quick intellect, aggressive nature, and native ability
to influence people. He launched a political career in 1847
that lasted, with some interruption, for fifty years, during
which he never lost an election. Harris rose to prominence
in the 1850s as the leader of the Southern rights wing of
the Democratic Party, fiercely advocating the right to hold
property in slaves. He served in the Tennessee state Senate,
as a U.S. congressman, and as governor during the secession
crisis, when, Elliott contends, Harris used his political
influence and constitutional power to trample on the state
constitution to align Tennessee with the Confederacy.
As governor, Harris tirelessly dedicated himself to the Confederate
war effort, raising troops and money and establishing a logistical
structure and armament industry. When the Federals overran
large portions of Middle and West Tennessee in 1862, he attached
himself to the headquarters of the Confederate Army of Tennessee.
As a volunteer aide, he served each of the army’s commanders
on nearly every one of its famed battlefields and was deemed
a possible successor to Jefferson Davis should the new republic
survive.
After the war, Harris went into voluntary exile in Mexico.
He returned home in late 1867 and worked behind the scenes
to “redeem” Tennessee from Radical rule, eventually
becoming the most famous of the state’s Bourbon Democrats.
Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1877, he held that seat until
his death in 1897. He successfully used the Senate’s
arcane parliamentary rules to block assertions of Federal
power at the expense of states’ rights, but advocated
imaginative application of Federal power where clearly authorized
by the Constitution.
The story of nineteenth-century Tennessee remains incomplete
without a thorough understanding of Isham Green Harris. Elliott’s
exhaustive and entertaining biography provides essential reading
for anyone interested in the political and military history
of the Volunteer State.
Sam Davis Elliott is the author of Soldier
of Tennessee: General Alexander P. Stewart and the
Civil War in the West and Doctor Quintard, Chaplain
C.S.A. and Second Bishop of Tennessee: The Memoir and Civil
War Diary of Charles Todd Quintard. He is a practicing
attorney and lives near Chattanooga, Tennessee. |
