With the rapid increase of population, the dread of Indian and Spaniard declined. Churches and schools were built, and soon many of the comforts and some of the luxuries of life made their appearance. The question of a circulating medium was acute during the first half of the 19th century, and State banks were organized, which suspended specie payments in times of financial stringency. The bank of Tennessee, organized in 1838, had behind it the credit of the State, and it was hoped that money for education and for internal improvements might be secured from its profits. The management became a question of party politics, and during the Civil War its funds were used to advance the Confederate cause. The development of the western section along the Mississippi was rapid after the beginning of the cen tury. Memphis, founded in 1819, was thought as late as 1832 to be in Mississippi, and not until 1837 was the southern boundary, which according to the North Carolina cession was Lat. 35°, finally established. As in other river towns, the disorderly element in Memphis was large, and the gamblers, robbers and horse thieves were suppressed only by local vigilance committees. The peculiar topographical conditions made the three sections of the State almost separate commonwealths, and demand for better means of communication was insistent. The policy of State aid to internal improvements found advocates very early, in spite of the Republican affiliations of the State, but a definite programme was not laid out until 1829, when commissioners for internal improvements were appointed and an expenditure of $150,000 was authorized. In 1835 the State agreed to subscribe one third to the capital stock of companies organized to lay out turnpikes, railways, etc., and four years later the proportion be came one-half. Though these agreements were soon repealed, the general policy was continued, and in 1861 more than $17,000, 000 of the State debt was due to these subscriptions, from which there was little return.
Though President Andrew Jackson was for many years practi cally a dictator in Tennessee politics, his arbitrary methods and his intolerance of any sort of independence on the part of his followers led to a revolt in 1836, when the electoral vote of the State was given to Hugh Lawson White, then United States senator from Tennessee, who had been one of Jackson's most devoted adherents. White's followers called themselves anti-Van Buren Democrats, but the proscription which they suffered drove most of them into the Whig party, which carried the State in presidential elections until 1856, when the vote was cast for James Buchanan, the Democratic candidate. The Whig party was so strong that James K. Polk (Democrat), a resident of the State, lost its electoral vote in 1844. With the disintegration of the Whig party, the State again became nominally Democratic, though Union sentiment was strong, particularly in East Tennessee. There were few large plantations and few slaves in that mountainous region, while the middle and western sections were more in harmony with the sentiment in Mississippi and Alabama. In 185o representatives of nine Southern States met in a convention at Nashville (q.v.) to consider the questions at issue between the
North and the South. The vote of the State was given for Bell and Everett in 186o, and the people as a whole were opposed to secession.
The State was, next to Virginia, the chief battle-ground during the Civil War, and a historian has counted 454 battles and skir mishes that took place within its borders. In Feb. 1862, General U. S. Grant and Commodore A. H. Foote captured Ft. Henry on the Tennessee river and Ft. Donelson on the Cumberland. The Confederate line of defence was broken and General D. C. Buell occupied Nashville. Grant next ascended the Tennessee river to Pittsburg Landing, with the intention of capturing the Memphis and Charleston Railway, and on April 6 and 7 defeated the Con federates in the battle of Shiloh. The capture of Island No. 10 in the Mississippi on April 7 opened the river as far S. as Mem phis, which was captured in June. On Dec. 31 and Jan. 2 General William S. Rosecrans (Federal) fought with General Braxton Bragg (Confederate) the bloody but indecisive battle of Stone river (Murfreesboro). In June, 1863 Rosecrans forced Bragg to evacuate Chattanooga. Bragg, however, turned upon his pursuer, and on Sept. 19 and 20 one of the bloodiest battles of the war was fought at Chickamauga. General Grant now assumed command, and on Nov. 24-25 defeated Bragg at Chattanooga, thus opening the way into East Tennessee. There General A. E. Burnside at first met with success, but was shut up in Knoxville by General James Longstreet, who was not able, however, to capture the city, and on the approach of General W. T. Sherman retired into Virginia. Almost the whole State was now held by Federal troops, and no considerable military movement occurred until of ter the fall of Atlanta in Sept. 1864. Then General J. B. Hood moved into Tennessee, expecting Sherman to follow him. Sherman, how ever, sent reinforcements to Thomas and continued his march to the sea. Hood fought with General John M. Schofield at Franklin, and on Dec. 15-16 was utterly defeated by Thomas at Nashville, the Federals thus securing virtually undisputed control of the State.