Editing Newport, Tennessee (section)

===Civil War===
By 1834, Newport had a population of 150. The town included two general stores, two doctors, three blacksmiths, two tailors, two hatters, a wagon maker, two churches, and two taverns. A new brick courthouse had been erected in 1828 to replace the crude log courthouse.<ref name="ReferenceA">Evelyn Parrott Graham, Rolfe Godshalk (editor), ''Newport'' (Newport, Tennessee: Clifton Club, 1970), 36.</ref>

While [[slavery in the United States|slavery]] was not as common in East Tennessee as in other parts of the [[Southern United States]], it did occur. Some buildings in early Cocke County were built with slave labor. Sometime before the Civil War, local records report the executions of at least two slaves. One was a grandmother whose grandson drowned while she fled across the Pigeon River in an attempt to keep him from being sold.<ref name="Evelyn Parrott Graham 1970"/> The other, a slave by the name of "Tom", was tortured and burned alive for the murder of Mary Lotspeich.<ref>Nancy O'Neil, "Beechwood Hall &mdash; Through Sunlight and Shadows," ''Smoky Mountain Historical Society Newsletter'' 12, no. 2 (Summer of 1986), 40.</ref> In the years leading up to the war, Newport's Methodists split into pro-slavery and anti-slavery denominations, reflecting a division common throughout the county.<ref name="Cocke County">E.R. Walker III, "[http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=282 Cocke County]."  ''Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture'', 2002.  Retrieved:  September 14, 2007.</ref>

When the [[American Civil War|Civil War]] broke out in the 1860s, New Port attempted to remain neutral. The town was a consistent target of raids from both [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] and [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] soldiers. The owners of Beechwood Hall buried their silver and kept their horses in the basement to prevent them from being stolen.<ref>Nancy O'Neil, "Beechwood Hall &mdash; Through Sunlight and Shadows," ''Smoky Mountain Historical Society Newsletter'' 12, no. 2 (Summer of 1986), 41.</ref> The residents of Cocke County eventually recruited a home guard to protect them from raids, which they based at the mouth of Indian Camp Creek, a few miles south of New Port.<ref>John Weaver, "[http://www.sevierlibrary.org/ahgp/Origins.htm Origins] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071006150328/http://www.sevierlibrary.org/ahgp/Origins.htm |date=2007-10-06 }}."  ''Newport Times'', January 10, 1940.  Retrieved:  September 14, 2007.</ref>

Several skirmishes occurred in the vicinity of New Port, namely along Lick Creek to the north and Cosby Creek to the south. At the latter, the brother of North Carolina Governor [[Zebulon Vance]] was captured in an ambush.<ref>Wilma Dykeman, ''The French Broad'' (New York: Rinehart, 1955), 114.</ref>