I have news from Nashville to the sixth. Indignation of Gov. Harris' orders to raise troops by draft from the militia was intense, even among the secessionists. The Daily Gazette denounced it in unmeasured terms, declaring that it was worse than Lincoln's call for men to “subdue the South.” In the fourth ward of Nashville, Capt. Patterson refused to obey orders for conscription, but was afterward forced to obedience by a threat of court-martial. In South-Nashville, on the second inst., a mob of more than one hundred men rushed upon the Governor's officers, and broke up the boxes used in drafting. A fight ensued between the Confederate officers and the people, in which two persons were killed and ten or twelve wounded.
Gov. Harris was compelled to keep his room at the St. Cloud up to the time my informant left, under strong guard, for fear of assassination by the incensed people. He had received many anonymous letters threatening his life. Col. Henry Claibourne, of the militia, was also afraid to show his head on the streets.
The writer further states that J. O. Griffith, financial proprietor of the Nashville Union and American, original secessionist, and Hugh McCrea, an Irish original secessionist, were among those drawn for militia service: Three wholesale dry goods merchants, Alfred Adams, Tom Fife, and W. S. Akin, had also been selected to shoulder the musket. Some wealthy persons offered as high as two thousand dollars for substitutes.
