On Saturday, Sept. 27, a recently discovered "redware jar" produced by Greene County potter John Alexander Lowe (1833-1902) prior to the Civil War will be sold at auction in Knoxville.

No other complete pieces of Lowe's work are known to exist, according to John Case, of Knoxville-based Case Antiques, who said the "redware jar with extruded handles" was brought to his firm by a member of an "old Hawkins County family."

Case said during an interview this week that he "conservatively" estimates the value of the "exceptionally rare redware jar" that is marked "J. A. Lowe (Low)," at $14,000 to $18,000.

Case said redware is a type of pottery that was fired at a lower temperature than the utilitarian "stoneware" that was frequently produced for storage of foodstuffs.

Because it was fired at a low temperature, redware was more colorful than stoneware and is now prized as decorative art.

Case said the Lowe jar is so historically signicant that it was the subject of a major article, with photos, that was published in last week's issue of Antique Week magazine.

Lowe was a 19th century Greene County potter associated with the so-called "bridge burners," a group of Union loyalists who burned the railroad bridge over Lick Creek in anticipation of an 1861 invasion of Confederate-occupied Northeast Tennessee by the Union Army. The invasion never materialized.

An Oct. 26, 2006, article in The Greeneville Sun by Greene County history buff Donahue Bible said the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad's Lick Creek bridge near present-day Mohawk was burned on the night of Nov. 8-9, 1861.

The Union sympathizers who carried out the action have become known as "The Bridge Burners," Bible wrote.

Destruction of the Lick Creek Bridge cost the lives of five local men who lived in the Pottertown settlement near the present-day Midway Post Office and took part in the burning of the bridge.

Jacob Harmon Jr., his son Henry Harmon, Christopher A. "Alex" Haun, Jacob M. Hinshaw, and Henry Fry were all hanged by Confederate officials within a five-week period.

The two Harmons, Haun and Hinshaw were Greene County potters, Bible wrote in 2006.

On orders of Confederate Secretary of War Judah Benjamin, Henry Fry and Jacob Hinshaw were hanged near the Greeneville railway depot, Bible wrote.

Jacob Harmon Jr., Henry Harmon (Jacob's son) and Christopher A. Haun were hanged in Knoxville after court-martial trials there. Harrison Self was subsequently pardoned -- just hours before he was to die -- after his daughter sent a plea for mercy to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Lowe, who was listed as a material witness for Self's delayed trial in Knoxville, joined the Confederate Army two days after Haun and the Harmons were hanged in Knoxville, according to the Aug. 22 Antique Week article by Eric C. Rodenberg.

Case was quoted in the Antique Week article as saying he thinks Lowe joined the Confederate army "to literally save his own neck."

Donahue Bible noted in an e-mail that J. A. Lowe worked on the farm for Harrison Self, one of the men who was sentenced to be executed for the burning of the Lick Creek bridge.

"Tennessee State archaeologists now believe that Lowe also worked as a potter's apprentice to C. A.. Haun, one of those hanged for the bridge burning," Bible wrote.

"Lowe testified at the Confederate drum-head court-martial in Knoxville, after being given leave from the Confederate army to do so.

"Lowe had always told his neighbors that, if he fought, it would be for the Confederacy, but his neighbors trusted him enough to solicit his help to burn the bridge."

He apparently never betrayed that trust. His testimony appeared to be very direct and to the point in his attempt to help Harrison Self as much as he could."

Case was quoted in the Antique Week article as having said Lowe and his family disappeared from Greene County records after his service in the Confederate army.

"After that, the Lowe family simply disappears from Greene County records, perhaps under a cloud of shame," Case also was quoted in the Antique Week article.

The same article notes that Lowe was discharged from the Confederate Army in 1862.

By 1865, his family was living in Indiana. Lowe had moved to Arkansas by 1880 and died there at age 69.

Harper's Weekly, the national newspaper of the Civil War era, published an article about the railroad bridge burning in its March 29, 1862, issue.

The newspaper's front page featured an artist's portrayal of (Union Army) Colonel David Fry swearing in the Greene County men at the home of Jacob Harmon Jr., about two miles from the Lick Creek Bridge.

Fry, who was a captain in the Union Army at the time of the bridge burning, had made his way to Greene County from an army camp in Kentucky with orders to organize the burning of railroad bridges prior to an anticipated invasion by the Union Army from Kentucky, Bible has written.

Case said neither he nor other U.S. pottery collectors had ever before seen a complete piece of Lowe's work.

Only shards of Lowe's work had previously been found during an archaelogical dig at the site of a former pottery kiln off Pottertown Road in Greene County's Midway community, Case said.

When he saw the redware jar, Case said, he realized that it was the work of the "master potter."

The craftsmanship evident in the jar changed previous assumptions that Lowe had been an "apprentice potter" who had worked with well-known potter Christopher Alexander Haun, and others in the Midway area then referred to as "Pottertown."