From Bent Twigs in Jefferson County, by the inestimable late County Historian, Jean Patterson Bible. Transcribed by the incomparable Doris Kinser Fountain.

The Satiric Toast

From a miscellaneous collection

(p. 94)

During the Civil War, the Old Hynds House adjoining one corner of the Revolutionary Cemetery in the Center of Dandridge, was owned and occupied by the D. H. Meek family.

"The two big front rooms were used by the Confederates as a hospital after the siege of Knoxville when skirmishes were occurring throughout the county. The beds were poor and crude, being only ticks and straw placed on the floors in the two rooms for the sick and wounded soldiers. The big spring in the back yard gave good, cold water for the parched lips of sick men and swathes of feverish brows… The soldiers replaced their canteens with the fresh water from the spring."

(Photo included of a house with the caption, "The Antebellum Hynds House in Dandridge, where Confederate officers drank a satiric toast to the Yankees with Yankee brandy.)

During what is sometimes called the "Battle of Dandridge," on a bitter cold day in January, 1864, "the left wing of the Confederate Army under Gen. Longstreet surprised the Union forces under Gen. Granger in Dandridge. After a short skirmish, Gen. Longstreet drove the Yankees back to Knoxville.

Following the battle, a Dandridge woman living in the Hynds House invited the Confederate officers in for a celebration. Gen. Granger, the Union Commander, had been a guest in the house just the night before. In the hurry of leaving, he forgot his bottle of good Yankee brandy. Nothing loath, the Confederate officers and their host and hostess drank a satiric toast to Gen. Granger from his own bottle." (From Ellen Hynds Vincent's "Hynds House.")