the slave population of the region during the decade of the 1850s—some 21 percent, as opposed to an increase of only 14 percent in the white population. While only about one-fourth of Southerners, as a whole, could afford to own any slaves at all, and the majority being owned by the wealthiest 6 percent, only about 10 percent of East Tennesseans were slaveholders. Though Tennessee had a strong Union loyalist coalition, with East Tennessee having a particularly strong Unionist presence, in the months following South Carolina's secession, the coalition soon began to splinter. Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers to put down the rebellion in the South left many of loyalists feeling betrayed. With most loyalists feeling betrayed by Lincoln, secessionist leaders quickly moved to exploit the shift in public opinion. On April 25, 1861, only thirteen days after General P.G.T. Beauregard's Confederate gunners opened fire on Fort Sumter, Tennessee's legislature met to consider the question of secession. On May 6, the legislature declared the state independent from the United States. The legislature also granted Governor Isham G. Harris the authority to create a state army of 55,000 men. Though a military alliance was signed with the Confederate States of America the very next day, Tennessee's Declaration of Independence was submitted for a referendum to be held on June 8. Almost 70 percent of the voters approved of secession, but 69 percent of East Tennesseans voted against it. While Union loyalists viewed the coming war as a struggle for Republican government, secessionists saw Lincoln as a tyrant and many citizens abandoned the old Union for the new Confederacy to remain true to the principles of the Founding Fathers. Formation of the 19th Tennessee Infantry By the end of May, more than twenty volunteer companies met just outside Knoxville at Camp Cummings, named after David H. Cummings, a prominent farmer and attorney of the region. The 19th Tennessee Infantry was officially formed there as East Tennessee's second Confederate regiment on June 11, 1861, and Cummings was elected as its first colonel. That month, William Phipps wrote home to his sister, Charlotte, "we are the pick regiment of Tennessee." According to Worsham's first person account, at the time of the regiment's formation, there were 1,012 men in the 19th's rank and file, and 48 commissioned officers, for a total of 1,060 soldiers. Organization The original command structure of the 19th was as follows: