The Appalachian Mountains between North Carolina and Tennessee were said to teem with out-liers and Confederate draft dodgers. East Tennessee with its pro-Unionists had "dragged its feet" about secession making the state last to secede, while North Carolina was next to the last. In fact, only six of the eastern counties in Tennessee had voted for secession. East Tennesseans were so distraught by prospects of severing ties to the Union that a movement, led by Henry Clay, was initiated to organize a new state comprised of East Tennessee and Western North Carolina with either Knoxville or Asheville as state capital. Following West Virginia's precedent set in 1861, this region as well could have remained Union territory. Only cannon fire from Fort Sumter in South Carolina and war breaking out could have silenced Clay's ardent bid. War raged with unexpected immediacy, and consequently this plan for another new state was doomed.

Even though the last hope for Tennessee remaining in the United States collapsed along with this proposal, loyalty to the Union did not perish. Loyalists braced for an onslaught and determined to wait it out. In 1862, however, pockets of dissenters were infiltrated by Confederate agents and conscripted forcefully.³ Some who had been ferreted out fled to remote mountain hide-outs, sheds, and caves as soon as an opportunity arose.

From woodland lairs high in the rugged Unakas, these fugitives reasoned that safety lay in numbers. Fear, desperation, and loneliness bonded men of all ages into comradery.

Without doubt, Bryson's was a familiar face to residents of Upper Beaver Dan, Hooper Gap, and Coker Creek communities, for he had married about 1861 to Susannah A. Payne, daughter of John C. and Jane (Walls) Payne, established citizens of the Tellico area in Monroe County, Tennessee.⁸ Thereafter, he farmed land at Six Mile inside the Monroe County border but lying near Cherokee County. That he customarily spent time in Cherokee County and traveled back and forth not only during the conflict but previously was also known because his parents, John and Margaret Bryson, and several siblings resided just across the state line in the Beaver Dam section of Cherokee County.⁹ Certainly the Unaka Mountain passes, especially one near Evans' Mill at Beaver Dam, were familiar turf to this local farmer.

Having sworn allegiance to and having served the United States Army previously, Bryson was not easily persuaded to throw caution to the wind and join a fledgling Confederate Army. Perhaps, he decided that he had already had enough of "soldiering" or felt himself too old to volunteer in a young man's war. Since he was already middle-aged by 1860, the possibility of a land grant or military pension for services previously rendered might have been considered as a tantalizing prospect. His family, farm, and their future were all at stake. Why jeopardize such viable prospects by abandoning his country and then aligning himself with a new, shaky government? What hill country folks may have lacked in formal education, they compensated for in old-fashioned common sense. Therefore, remaining neutral probably seemed the more sensible course of action.

Destiny, however, would not abide his merely "waiting out" the war as a spectator.

At forty-four years mature in 1861 and with military expertise, his was a voice frightened young men and deserters listened to -- if not feared -- and then obeyed. Whether he chose to assume leadership or whether the lot were cast upon him remains uncertain; nevertheless, by the summer of 1863, there revolved around him a whirlwind of followers. Other out-liers and Confederate dissidents, one after another, had crept into his den; and if face and name were trusted, these desperate men were accepted into the ranks of "Bryson's Boys."

"General Scofield at Knoxville encouraged Colonel [George W.] Kirk to organize the enemies of Jeff Davis in Western North Carolina rather than undertake such hazardous expeditions."¹⁵ Thus, the term "Kirk's Raiders" referred to fugitives and dissidents like Bryson's Boys -- virtually anyone brave or foolhardy enough to launch military offensives for Colonel Kirk into the ominous Unaka Mountains. Goldman Bryson accepted this challenge and was subsequently known as Captain in the Union Army of Volunteers.¹⁶

Guarding against such Union raids by Kirk of Laurel was only one hundred Confederates under Brigadier General John W. McElroy who wrote to Governor Vance of North Carolina saying that it was

M. T. Williams related one vivid encounter with Bryson during the war. In October 1863 just after the Battle of Philadelphia, Tennessee, Williams notified Confederate General John Crawford Vaughn of Monroe County, Tennessee that a gang of "bushwhackers" had just passed his home and headed toward the Tellico River. Vaughn took Williams and a small squadron in rapid pursuit. After having rested part of the night near Coco [Coker] Creek, Williams dressed as a Yankee soldier and scouted toward the North Carolina line ahead of General Vaughn. The company overtook Bryson's Boys at Evans' Mill on Beaver Dam Creek in Cherokee County, North Carolina. Two of Bryson's Boys were verified as killed and supposedly seventeen captured; only one of Vaughn's squad was killed. Bryson escaped this seige since he was mounted on a swifter steed.¹⁸ The seventeen captured men forever disappeared into oblivion. Tradition has it that they were executed on the shoals of the Tellico River in Monroe County, Tennessee.

Vaughn's squadron was later chastised in a Confederate inspection report dated May 6, 1864. "The report was very critical of the condition of the brigade, and especially of the commander, General Vaughn, calling it little more than a band of marauders."¹⁹ Again, which were the bushwhackers; which, the banditti? This depended, of course, on one's perspective. Objectivity might be attained by means of distance not only in place but in time as well.

Bryson's Boys had camped near Evans' Mill in Beaver Dam Township near John B. and Mary "Polly" (Miller) Evans' one-hundred-acre farm. The Evanses and the Brysons had long-standing relationships because of some intermarriages between their families. Whether Bryson's Boys were actually the trespassers whom Williams had pursued and whether he had identified the correct band mattered not: they were enemy warriors to be expunged.

M. T. Williams said that even though Bryson escaped that morning he was trailed by Captain Jim Taylor, with a squad of Indians, and killed a day or two later on Coco [Coker] Creek where he lived.²⁰ However, Paul J. Long's and Robert Barker's research revealed that

At only forty-six years of age, Captain Goldman Bryson was laid to rest near his home at Six Mile. His grave stone stands alone today across the creek from the Atlas Davis' old homeplace in the Coker Creek Community of Monroe County, Tennessee.²⁸ His death on October 28, 1863 did not deter the Union forays throughout the Unakas or lessen the threat of Kirk's raiders, who were said to have destroyed Murphy Courthouse by fire in 1865.²⁹

On June 13, 1864, Kirk's 130 volunteers successfully routed Confederates at Camp Vance, where 279 Rebels surrendered as prisoners of war and forty soldiers were recruited into the Union regiment.³⁰ By mid 1864, the remnants of Bryson's Boys were gathered by their friend, Enoch "Pete" Voyles of Persimmon Creek Community in Cherokee County, North Carolina, and led to Knoxville, Tennessee training camps where they were officially mustered into the Union Army on October 1, 1864. Voyles, who had formerly served in Hugh Harvey Davidson's Company C,³¹ 39th N. C. Regiment in the Confederacy, was appointed Captain of Company G to be comprised mostly of men from Monroe County, Tennessee and Cherokee County, North Carolina.³² These volunteers enlisted in one of eight companies of Tennessee's Third Mounted Infantry Regiment for one hundred days' service, but most fell into the ranks of Captain Voyles' Company G. Thus, these soldiers were commonly referred to as "the 100 day volunteers."