and detested the idea that Knoxville would become industrialized along the lines of northern manufacturing centers. This brought him into conflict with Brownlow and business leaders such as Perez Dickinson, who believed the region's abundant coal and iron resources made industrialization Knoxville's most lucrative option. Ramsey was also radically pro-slavery, going so far as to call for the reopening of the Atlantic slave trade. During the secession crisis that followed Lincoln's election in November 1860, Ramsey grew increasingly frustrated with East Tennessee's refusal to align itself with the South. Ramsey suggested that most East Tennesseans were too "ignorant" to understand the secession issue, and accused Brownlow (who was pro-Union) of using the Whig to brainwash them. After the fall of Fort Sumter, Ramsey wrote to Governor Isham Harris, and suggested he bypass a voters' referendum on Tennessee's Union ties and simply dissolve them by proclamation. Ramsey owned eight slaves in 1860 prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. The Civil War During the war, Ramsey served as a Confederate treasury agent, and two of his sons served in the Confederate Army. His eldest son, John Crozier Ramsey, was appointed Confederate States District Attorney of Knox County. In this capacity, the younger Ramsey issued indictments against the city's pro-Unionists, and in December 1861, had Brownlow arrested for treason. As rumors spread that the Confederate Army was planning to release Brownlow, the elder Ramsey wrote to Jefferson Davis, calling Brownlow the "prime mover and instigator" of Union sentiment in the region, and demanded he be court-martialed. As the war raged on, Ramsey's fortunes collapsed. His son, Arthur, was killed in battle, his daughters Charlotte and Henrietta died, and two other sons were captured. When the Union Army occupied Knoxville in 1863, Ramsey and his family were forced to flee. His home, Mecklenburg, with its 4,000-volume library, was burned by a Union soldier (Ramsey claimed the arsonist had been hired by Brownlow). Brownlow seized Ramsey's townhouse in Knoxville, and had Ramsey's youngest daughter, Susan, expelled from the city. Ramsey's son was forced to sell the family's ancestral home in East Knoxville. Ramsey himself spent the latter half of the war in various cities around the region, continuously fleeing the Union Army's advance. Later life At the end of the war, the Ramseys wound up in a house in Charlotte, North Carolina, which they called "Exile's Retreat." Brownlow, now governor of Tennessee, refused