Tried Men and True, or Union Life in Dixie

Thomas Jefferson Cypert

ISBN 10: 0817362258 / ISBN 13: 9780817362256

Published by University Of Alabama Press Jun 2025, 2025

About this Item

Neuware - Thomas Jefferson Cypert (1827-1918) was a staunch Union man in one of the most Confederate areas of Tennessee, and became Captain of Company A in the 2nd Regiment, Mounted Infantry, U.S. Tennessee Volunteers. After the war, he served at least one term in the Tennessee State Senate. He wrote this manuscript for publication to defend his stance and recount his wartime experiences. It was never published, and has existed in his family in manuscript form until now.

Seller Inventory # 9780817362256

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Tried Men and True, or Union Life in Dixie
• Publisher: University Of Alabama Press Jun 2025
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0817362258
• ISBN 13: 9780817362256
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 229W x 152H x 15D millimeters 229 millimeters width by 152 millimeters height by 15 millimeters depth
• Weight: 676 grams

About this title

Synopsis

A gripping firsthand account of loyalty, resistance, and survival in Confederate Tennessee, this memoir reveals the untold story of Unionist courage behind enemy lines.

Tried Men and True, or Union Life in Dixie is the memoir of a Union supporter in south-central Tennessee. In it, he chronicles in vivid and emotional detail the local tensions between Unionists and Confederates during the Civil War South and offers a rare first-person account of the guerrilla war that devastated Western Tennessee.

Thomas Jefferson Cypert (1827-1918) was a staunch Union man of Wayne County, Tennessee. In 1863, he helped organize the Second Tennessee Mounted Infantry, a regiment of loyalist Southerners enlisted to combat Confederate cavalry in West Tennessee and Northern Alabama. Tried Men and True is Cypert’s memoir of his time as Captain of Company A, including his capture by Confederate cavalry and subsequent daring escape, in which he was aided by local Union sympathizers and slaves.

After the Civil War, Cypert served two terms in the Tennessee State Senate, one of them during the heated first years of Reconstruction, when Tennessee disenfranchised former rebels and attempted to establish Unionist Republican rule in the state. Cypert clearly wrote his memoir to defend Unionism, condemn secession and rebellion, and support loyalists’ claims for post-war power through an account of their wartime sacrifices. Never before published, the manuscript has been preserved in nearly perfect condition by Cypert’s descendants over the generations. This book is a remarkable and engagingly written account of resistance to the Confederacy by a group of southwestern Tennessee loyalists.

About the Author

Margaret M. Storey is an associate professor of History at DePaul University, and the author of Loyalty and Loss: Alabama’s Unionists in the Civil War and Reconstruction.