My wish is that you give that government and the
people there the same support and protection that you would if the
members had been admitted, because in no event, nor in any view of the
case, can this do any harm, while it will be the best you can do toward
suppressing the rebellion."
While Military Governor Andrew Johnson had been the earliest to begin
the restoration of loyal Federal authority in the State of Tennessee,
the course of campaign and battle in that State delayed its completion
to a later period than in the others. The invasion of Tennessee by the
Confederate General Bragg in the summer of 1862, and the long delay of
the Union General Rosecrans to begin an active campaign against him
during the summer of 1863, kept civil reorganization in a very uncertain
and chaotic condition. When at length Rosecrans advanced and occupied
Chattanooga, President Lincoln deemed it a propitious time to vigorously
begin reorganization, and under date of September 11, 1863, he wrote the
military governor emphatic suggestions that:
"The reinauguration must not be such as to give control of the State and
its representation in Congress to the enemies of the Union, driving its
friends there into political exile.... You must have it otherwise. Let
the reconstruction be the work of such men only as can be trusted for
the Union.
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