Levi Trewhitt in Prison in Knoxville, Tennessee

from "The Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee", by Thomas William Humes

Ogden Bros, & Co., Knoxville, TN, 1888, excerpts from pg. 147-149

"Among the many prisoners at Knoxville, were some under like accusation with the two hung at Greeneville; but proceedings against them were more deliberate.  They were tried by a court-martial, organized under Gen. Carroll, of Middle Tennessee, successor of Col. Wood at the Post, and by common repute of dissipated habits.  For nearly one month, Wm. G. Browlow was an inmate of the jail.  He states that at the time he was cast into it, the prisoners numbered about one hundred and fifty; that on the lower floor where he was kept, there was not room for all to lie down at one time, and therefore they stood on their feet and rested alternately; that the only article of furniture in the building was a dirty wooden bucket, from which the prisoners drank water with a tin cup; and that their food consisted of meat and bread, scantily supplied, sometimes half raw, sometimes burned.  To the truth of his description, i the main, there is extantant corroborative testimony.  Some prisoners shook his hand silently with tears; some faces lighted with joy to see him, some manifested a sense of humiliation wrought by their condition, and many were depressed spirits.  A few notes taken from his diary in jail will show the nature and extent of the work carried on by the military towards suspected and convicted Union people:

{excerpt mentioning Levi Trewhitt, page 149, dated Sunday, December 15, 1861:} Started thirty-five of our lot to Tuscaloosa to be held during the war.  Levi Trewhitt, an able lawyer, but an old man, will never get back.*  His sons came up to see him, but were denied the privilege.  Dr. Hunt, from the same county of Bradley, has also gone.  His wife came sixty miles to see him, and came to the jail door, but was refused admittance.

Footnote: *He died in prison.