John Bell Brownlow

John Bell Brownlow (October 19, 1839 – October 26, 1922) was an American military officer, newspaper editor, government administrator, and real estate developer. The older of Parson Brownlow's two sons, Brownlow was a Southern Unionist who served as colonel in the United States (Union) cavalry in the Civil War. After the war, he joined his father in editing East Tennessee newspapers, and in later life, he became a real estate developer in his hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee.

Biography Born at Elizabethton in Carter County, Tennessee, Brownlow was named for U.S. Senator John Bell. John was the second-born of the eight Brownlow children. He went to school at Emory and Henry College in Virginia, where in 1860, he apparently accidentally killed a fellow student named James W. Reese. According to the Parson, the fatal blow to the head was in self-defense. He was acquitted at trial. Per W. G. Brownlow, the judge told the jury he "would have rendered the same verdict if he had been one of their number."

In June 1861 the Parson heard tell Andrew Johnson, returning from a trip to Kingston, would inadvertently be boarding a train that carried 2,000 Confederate troops. He sent John Bell Brownlow to get a good horse and buggy and get Johnson out of Kingston before he encountered the rebels. Upon arrival, Johnson told young Brownlow, "I thank you for all the trouble you've taken and your father and yourself for your kindness, but I own several thousand dollars in stock in this railroad and I will be damned if I will be driven from traveling on it by the damned traitors of the Cotton States!" (Johnson's traveling companions T.A.R. Nelson and Connally Trigg eventually persuaded him to go with J. B. Brownlow by buggy.)

Brownlow served as colonel of the 9th Tennessee from June 1, 1863, until the end of the American Civil War. Along with Alven Gillem, John K. Miller, and W. H. Ingerton, he was one of the colonels who led the raid that killed John Hunt Morgan at Greeneville.

Brownlow took over his father's newspaper, the Whig, when the latter was elected governor of Tennessee, and ran it until 1869, when it was sold. The younger Brownlow served as his father's private secretary when he was in the U.S. Senate. In 1872, he married Fannie Fouché, daughter of Dr. John Fouché. John B. Brownlow then worked in the Post Office and the U.S. Treasury Departments in Washington, D.C. for about 27 years. He then entered real estate in Knoxville in partnership with two of his sons. For example, in 1920, he wrote a letter retelling his father's alignment with John Bell, his own meeting with Douglas in his father's stead, and his father's determination that Mary Todd Lincoln be granted a government pension of $5,000 per year despite the fact that many of the other committee members deemed Mrs. Lincoln a "curse to her husband."

Brownlow died in Knoxville, Tennessee at age 83 and was buried in Old Gray Cemetery. He was survived by two sons and a daughter.