§ 3469. In order to obtain an attachment the plaintiff, his agent or attorney, shall make oath in writing, stating the nature and amount of the debt or demand, and that it is a just claim, and also that one or more of the causes enumerated in section 3455 exists.
§ 3470. It is no objection to the attachment that the bill, affidavit, or attachment states, in the alternative or otherwise, more than one of the causes for which an attachment may be sued out.
§ 3471. The officer to whom application is made shall, before granting the attachment, require the plaintiff . . . to execute a bond in double the amount claimed to be due, . . . payable to the defendant and conditioned that the plaintiff will prosecute the attachment with effect, or in case of failure pay, &c.
§ 3472. The affidavit and bond shall be filed by the officer taking them in the court to which the attachment is returnable, and shall constitute a part of the record in the case.
Subsequent sections of the chapter provide for publication for a fixed time in a newspaper published in the county where the suit is brought of a memorandum or notice of the attachment, and declare:
§ 3522. This memorandum or notice shall contain the names of the parties, the style of the court to which the attachment is made returnable, the cause alleged for suing it out, and the time and place at which the defendant is required to appear and defend the attachment suit.
§ 3524. The attachment and publication are in lieu of personal service upon the defendant, and the plaintiff may proceed upon the return of the attachment duly levied, as if the suit had been commenced by summons.
With these enactments of the code in force, W. G. Brownlow, on the 26th September, 1863, sued out a writ of summons in trespass, in the County Court of Knox County, Tennessee, against Reynolds and others, for false imprisonment, for ejecting him from the State, &c.; damages $25,000. To this writ the sheriff returned that 'he had made search and that none of the defendants were to be found in his county.' On the same day that he applied for the summons, and before the same person, one M. L. Hall, who, as clerk, had issued the summons in the trespass suit, Brownlow filed an affidavit, for an attachment against the property of Reynolds and the others. The affidavit, after giving the names of the parties to the summons, ran thus:'The plaintiff makes oath that he has a good cause of action against the defendants herein named in which he will be entitled to recover a very large sum. He further swears that all of defendants have fled from this State OR that they so abscond or conceal themselves that the ordinary process of law cannot reach them; that he has this day instituted an action of trespass against them claiming $25,000. Plaintiff therefore prays for an ancillary attachment against their property in aid of this his suit.'
An attachment bond being given in double the amount ($50,000) the attachment issued; the bond and attachment being, like the affidavit and summons had been, both dated September 26th. The attachment recited the above-given affidavit substantially as made, and directed the sheriff to attach so much of the property of Reynolds and the others as should be sufficient to satisfy the said amount of $25,000, and such estate so to secure that the same might be subject to further proceedings thereon at a court to be held on a day subsequent and specified. The sheriff returned to this last writ that he had attached all the right and title of Reynolds in and to one hundred and sixty acres of land in Knox County. Publication was ordered by the court to be made in the Knoxville Whig (a paper of the county), notifying to the defendants to appear and plead, answer or demur, or that the suit would be taken as confessed and proceeded in ex parte as to them. The record did not, however, set forth the notice which was published, if any was; though it did set forth the order for publication, which was entitled, 'Order of publication, and the publication as made in the Knoxville Whig;''' making it appear, perhaps, that the omission to set forth the notice was a clerical error.