the paper into conflict with the pro-Union Whig. After the election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860, Bradfield called for immediate secession, claiming, "the last link is broken." Secession crisis As the secession debate intensified in the weeks following Lincoln's election, Knoxville's disunionists grew increasingly concerned over the influence wielded by Brownlow, whom they believed responsible for East Tennessee's relatively strong Union sentiment. To counter Brownlow, a group of Knoxville secessionists purchased the Register in early 1861, and installed radical secessionist Jacob Austin Sperry as editor. Sperry immediately set out to attack Brownlow and other Union leaders, carefully tailoring his arguments to show how the demise of slavery would harm not just planters from the Deep South, but poor whites of East Tennessee as well. Brownlow dismissed Sperry's attacks, calling him a "tool" who "fathers the slang prepared for him by men too cowardly to write over their own signatures." After the attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861, Sperry began publishing a daily edition of the Register. Secession leaders Crozier, William H. Sneed, and J. G. M. Ramsey wrote editorials for the paper, and Sperry insisted that East Tennessee's Unionists would eventually come around and unite with the region's secessionists. Civil War Throughout the latter half of 1861, the Register called for harsh measures against the region's Unionists, and demanded they either take Oath of Allegiance to the Confederacy or be jailed for the duration of the coming war. Ironically, the paper's cofounder, Frederick Heiskell, then in his late 70s, was among the Unionists jailed for refusing to take the Oath. General Felix Zollicoffer, a former employee of the Register, commanded Confederate forces occupying East Tennessee in late 1861. After Brownlow was arrested in December 1861, the Register demanded he either be hanged or jailed. When Confederate authorities ordered his release, the Register blasted the decision as foolish, stating "that Brownlow is now laughing, like the king's fool, in his sleeve, we doubt not for a moment." In February 1862, the Register issued a call for the formation of a Knoxville home-guard to help defend against a Union invasion, and supported the continued application of martial law in the region to root out Union loyalists. As Union support in East Tennessee remained steady, Sperry grew increasingly frustrated. He complained that many county officials in East Tennessee who had taken the Oath still supported the Union, or otherwise refused to