Since the death of this noted rebel leader, some interest is attached to his previous history. From our best sources of information we learn that General Felix K. Zollicoffer (irreverently styled “Snollegoster,” by the Union soldiers,) was of a Swiss family who emigrated to Tennessee some fifty or sixty years ago. Felix was born in Maury County, near Nashville, in 1812; was educated a printer; edited, when twenty-two years of age, the Columbia Observer ; in 1833 was made State Printer, and in 1842 became editor of the Nashville Banner, then the leading Whig paper in the State.
In 1853 he was chosen to Congress as an American ; served three terms with considerable credit, and was a leading champion of Bell-Everett Unionism in 1860. When it became evident that the rebellion would gain the upper hand in Tennessee, he plunged into the current, and has since been a prominent rebel. In September last he was made a Brigadier General, and sent into East Tennessee as commander in that department, where he did very much to crush out or stifle the hitherto overwhelming Union sentiment. He was a man of narrow but rather acute mind, and of good personal character and habits, whose early Jacksonism and later Whiggery qualified him to exert a powerful influence in East Tennessee. His military aptitudes, such as they are, must have been acquired since he was made a General.
Cincinnati Daily Press, Cincinnati, OH