Trowbridge says of east Tennessee: "Returning rebels were robbed; and if one had stolen unawares to his home, it was not safe for him to remain there.

I saw in Virginia one of these exiles, who told me how homesickly he pined for the hills and meadows of east Tennessee, which he thought the most delightful region in the world.

But, there was a rope hanging from a tree for him there, and he dared not go back.

'The bottom rails are on top,' said he, 'that is the trouble.' The Union element, and the worst part of the Union element, was uppermost." Confederates and Confederate sympathizers in Maryland, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, were disfranchised.
In West Virginia, Tennessee, and Missouri, "war trespass" suits were brought against returning Confederates for military acts done in war time.

In Missouri and West Virginia, strict test oaths excluded Confederates from office, from the polls, and from the professions of teaching, preaching, and law.