East Tennessee: Tipton-Haynes video episode focuses on civilians during the Civil War

One of three episodes on East Tennessee history was being taped Monday at Tipton-Haynes Historic Site by the East Tennessee Historical Society.
The videos will be part of a permanent exhibit titled Voices of the Land — People of East Tennessee that will be housed at the East Tennessee History Center at 601 Gay St., Knoxville.
The segment being filmed here is on the Civil War from the standpoint of civilians, according to Cherel Henderson. The filming will next move to the Dickson-Williams Mansion in Greeneville, focusing on the diary of Rhoda Williams, who opposed the division of the nation although her family owned slaves.
Other diary entries come from Effie Eagleton and Eliza Fain. Eliza Rhea Anderson Fain opposed Union intervention in what she considered the South’s business. “We are asked to submit to this rule ...They should treat us as brethren and let us go,” she wrote.
Williams, while favoring Union, recognized it was a hopeless case. “The Southern people will never come to any terms with Lincoln,” she wrote. “His policy is to crush the South and make us all slaves.”
The first film will be an orientation to the exhibit and the final will be on country music and how traditions were passed from father to son or daughter.
The script, utilizing the diaries, was written by Hillman and Carr from Washington, D.C., the producers of the series. The Johnson City unit is under the hands of producer Jennifer Gruber.
“The Civil War home front is a unique story to East Tennessee, Henderson said. “There was so much bitterness and division between families. The diaries show this agony.”
The taping began with doing exterior shots of the buildings involved. Monday’s session actually involved actors running lines.
Adam Alfrey, curator of the exhibit, said it will cover 8,000 square feet of the old customs house in Knoxville, and will also have a traveling exhibit. The total exhibit will cover from early settlement up to the present, combining artifacts with images. The videos will each run about six minutes.
Unlike most Civil War film re-creations, this one will not involve battles or scenes with uniformed re-enactors, but will focus on the lives of civilians as they try to cope with the hardships and violence that was ripping East Tennessee apart.

By James Brooks
Press Staff Writer
Johnson City Press Chronicle