On May 13, 1861, voters gathered in Marshall, the Madison County seat, to elect a delegate to the Secession Convention in Raleigh amid sharply divided loyalties. Sheriff Ransom P. Merrill and others were later described as supporting Jeff Davis and the Confederacy, while others shouted for Washington and the Union, and one witness recalled that much liquor had been drunk that day. When a dispute broke out between some Unionists and Merrill, he drew his pistol and shot and wounded Elisha Tweed. Neely Tweed, Elisha’s father and former clerk of the superior court, then shot Merrill with a double-barreled shotgun and killed him. The Tweeds later joined the 4th Tennessee Infantry (U.S.), and Neely died of fever in 1862. The voters elected secessionist J.A. McDowell to the state convention. By January 1863, this local war within a war had escalated in the mountains when Unionists from Madison County’s Shelton Laurel community were deprived of salt. A band of 50 or 60 Union soldiers and civilians raided Marshall, taking salt and other provisions and wounding Confederate Capt. John Peek. The raiders also ransacked the home of Col. Lawrence M. Allen of the 64th North Carolina Infantry; two of Allen’s children, who were lying desperately ill in the house at the time, afterward died. Confederate troops then marched on Shelton Laurel to put down the insurrection and recover property taken from Marshall, and after meeting resistance they summarily executed at least 13 prisoners, men and boys, in what became known as the Shelton Laurel Massacre.