One-hundred-and-fifty-four years ago today, Lawrence Countians awoke in a different nation than the one in which they had gone to bed.

On June 8, 1861, Tennessee voters went to the polls to approve or disapprove of the legislature’s May decision to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy.

This referendum was a paradox in Lawrence County for a number of reasons. At the time the vote was held, Lawrence County’s first company of Confederate volunteers was in Camp Trousdale for basic training.

Not long after the legislature voted to secede from the Union on May 6, this company of volunteers, their families, and many of the people of Lawrenceburg, had gathered in what is now Ethridge, near the current location of Rick’s, and held a grand going-away feast with patriotic speeches and songs celebrating the new Confederacy. They had also been presented a new banner made by the ladies of the town to take into battle–an American flag, which had to be sent home when the company arrived at Camp Trousdale.

Another paradox concerning Lawrence County’s vote to secede from the Union is that, among those men training for Confederate service at the time of the secession referendum on June 8, at least one Lawrence County soldier voted against secession, despite having already been sworn into the service of the Confederacy.

At home, support for secession was relatively concrete. As one Unionist wrote many years after the Civil War ended, it was dangerous during that time to publicly express any pro-Union sentiments in Lawrence County. One man who voted against secession and let everyone know about it was threatened so often that he was forced to leave the county and join the Union army.

We are fortunate to still have the returns for that secession referendum–showing who showed up to vote, and how each district voted–preserved in the Lawrence County Archives. As this chart shows, most of Lawrence County’s civil districts voted unanimously to secede from the Union, with the strongest opposition to secession coming from the 6th and 7th civil districts, which was a swath of western Lawrence County covering roughly the area between West Point and Laurel Hill.

Overall, 2,240 Lawrence County men (94% of the electorate) voted in favor of secession on June 8, 1861, while 139 (6% of the electorate) voted against it.