Here's a possibility:
How had it come to be that these 850 or so East Tennessee [1861 men met at this point in their young lives? Perhaps an understanding of the momentous events of the time may be gained by what the Honorable Captain Edward Dillihunty Baxter noted in his remarks at the Franklin [Tennessee] reunion of Confederate veterans in the fall of 1892, where he made the following observations:
A political party arose in the United State which maintained that slavery was wrong and should be abolished. And though the Supreme Court of the United States had decided in favor of the right of property in slaves, the political party referred to boldly proclaimed that it would not abide by the decision of the highest court in the land; and that, if necessary, the Constitution would be amended so as to abolish slavery under the forms of the law. That party finally became strong enough to elect Mr. Lincoln President of the United States, and the people of the South feared that in a few years the same party would become strong enough to change the Constitution so as to utterly destroy the right of property in slaves. The people of the South believed that they would be deprived of their right of property without due process of law, and without compensation; and, entertaining that belief, there was nothing left for them to do but to resort to arms to defend their right of property, or to cowardly abandon it without a struggle.[3]
[3] Rev. Albert Theodore Goodloe, First Lieutenant, Company D, 35th Regiment, Alabama Volunteer
Infantry, C. S. A., Confederate Echoes A Voice from the South in the Days of Secession and of the
Southern Confederacy, Publishing House of the M. E. Church, South, Smith & Lamar, Nashville,
Tenn., 1907. Capt. Baxter commanded an artillery battery during the war known as Baxter's Artillery.
Post war he became an "eminent lawyer whose reputation was coexistent with the United States"
[Confederate Veteran, Vol. XXVII, p. 351] and "for more than forty years he was a recognized leader
of the Tennessee bar." [Confederate Veteran, Vol. XVIII, p. 389]