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Incident at Looney's Tavern

© Martine G. Bates

How would you like to spend part of your vacation enjoying an outdoor musical play that will actually teach you some history? In Double Springs, Alabama, from June through Labor Day, you can sit in a riverside ampitheater and learn lessons your history books never taught you.

Most people know that the South seceded from the Union in 1861, precipitating the Civil War. Most people understand the major issues in the war, know the major battlefields, and can name the generals who commanded the troops.

But few people have heard about the incident at Looney's Tavern--one of the most intriguing stories from the Civil War--or, as some folks around here call it, the War of Northern Aggression.

After Lincoln was elected, the government of Alabama called for representatives from the various counties to attend a Secession Convention in Montgomery to discuss whether to secede from the United States. Winston County in Northern Alabama was the poorest county in the state in according to the 1860 census, populated by poor farmers who barely made a living from the rugged ground. They were, accroding to one historian, fiercely independent--outside the mainstream politically, geographically, and economically.

Chris Sheets, the young schoolteacher elected to represent Winston County in the Secession Convention, voted against secession. He and a few others from North Alabama refused to sign the ordinance of secession, instead returning home to share the news of impending war.

County leaders called a meeting at Bill Looney's Tavern, sending riders out in all directions to alert residents of the hills and hollows. Between 2,500 and 3,000 people attended, most of whom agreed with the resolution that was drawn up:

"We agree with Jackson that no state can legally get out of the Union, but if we are mistaken in this, and a state can lawfully and legally secede or withdraw, . . .then a county, any county, being part of the state, by the same process of reasoning, could cease to be a part of the state."

According to witnesses, a Confederate sympathizer in the crowd, upon hearing the resolution read, shouted, "Oh, Oh, Winston secedes! The Free State of Winston!"

And so was born the Free State of Winston. The story of what happened to those brave, independent folks is not pretty, just as the entire story of the Civil War--or any war--is gruesome and ugly in its details.

Although the group passed another resolution the same day, declaring their neutrality and asking both the Confederacy and the Union to leave them alone, the governor declared all participants to be traitors and later attempted to draft the residents of Winston County to serve in the Confederate Army. The poverty of the area deepend as Union sympathizers fled into the hills to escape conscription. Property was seized, crops failed, and many died at the hands of their own government.

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