His Three Sons

Neill_Smith_Brown_by_Mathew_Brady_1849

Apostate’s speech drives out the teenager

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch June 24, 1862:

Neil S. Brown.

–The Knoxville Register relates an incident which followed Neil S. Brown’s apostasy, which was calculated to bring a blush to the cheeks of the most hardened renegade. Brown has three sons; two of them are in the Confederate army, and one, a youth of about fifteen, was at home. Upon hearing of his father’s making a Union speech, this noble lad sought him, and hearing the confirmation from his own lips, not only expressed his indignation, but declared he could never again set foot beneath the parental roof, but would join his brothers in defence of the South. It is said he has kept his word.

Neill Smith Brown served as Governor of Tennessee from 1847-1849. He was a delegate to the convention that wrote the 1870 state constitution that was required to outlaw slavery.

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