The Continental Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 3, March 1862 | Page 2

is well worth careful study at this crisis. Let the reader take the map and trace on it the dark caterpillar-like lines of the Alleghanies from Pennsylvania southward. Not until he reaches Northern Alabama will he find its end. In these mountain districts which form 'the Switzerland of the South,' a population exists on whom slavery has no hold, who are free and lovers of freedom, and who will undoubtedly co-operate with the Union in reestablishing its power. This 'Alleghania' embraces thirteen counties of North Carolina, three of South Carolina, twenty of Georgia, fifteen of Alabama, and twenty-six of Tennessee.
According to Humboldt and other writers on climatology, an elevation of two hundred and sixty-seven feet above the level of the sea is equivalent in general influence upon vegetation to a degree of latitude northward, at the level of the ocean. Therefore we are not surprised to learn from Olmsted that 'Alleghania' does not differ greatly in climate from Long Island, Southern New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. 'The usual crops are the same, those of most consequence being corn, rye, oats and grass. Fruit is a more precarious crop, from a greater liability to severe frosts after the swelling of the buds in the spring. Snow has fallen several inches in the month of April.'[A]
The Western Virginia portion of Alleghania, which in the counter-secession programme of its inhabitants was to have formed the State of 'Kanawha,' embraced in its total population of 284,796 only 10,820 slaves. Its area is 4,211 square miles larger than the entire State of Maryland. With this we have 'Middle Virginia,' in the valley of the Shenandoah, which extends east of the main Alleghany range to the Blue Ridge. This region also is broadly distinguishable in respect to slavery from the Atlantic counties. With 200,262 freemen according to the census of 1850, it has only 44,742 slaves, and there is reason to believe that this population has largely diminished in favor of freedom. Yet again we have the mountain district of South-western Virginia, where in its ten counties the proportion of freemen to slaves is nearly ten to one, or 76,892 to 8,693. As regards internal resources, beautiful scenery, and all that conduces to pleasant life and profitable labor, this portion of Virginia far surpasses the eastern division, and will eventually attract the great mass of immigration.
The reader is aware that Eastern Kentucky, embracing the counties along the western base of the Cumberland Mountains, 'has nobly responded to the cause of the Union.' 'They represent a population which from the first outbreak have been on fire with loyal zeal, repudiating all sympathy with this war of slavery against the Union.' The proportion of slaves to freemen in these counties, according to the census of 1850, is as follows:--
COUNTIES FREE SLAVE Letcher, 2,440 62 Floyd, 5,503 149 Harlan, 4,108 123 Whitley, 7,222 201 Knox, 6,238 612 Perry, 2,972 117 Clay, 4,734 515 Breathitt, 3,603 170 Morgan, 7,305 187 Johnson, 3,843 30 Lawrence, 6,142 137 Carter, 5,000 257
In contrast to this healthy, temperate Eastern Kentucky, 'a portion of the great central district of mountain slopes and valleys,' let the reader turn to the secession hot-bed of the State. He will find it the largest slaveholding district of Kentucky. It is worth noting that secession is matured in the slave regions, for though it is popularly identified with slavery, they are not wanting among its leaders--no, nor among their traitorous and cowardly sympathizers here at the North--who constantly assert that secession is simply a geographical necessity, and slavery only a secondary cause--that the South will, in fact, eventually emancipate, and that race and latitude are the great fundamental causes of national difference, constituting us in fact 'two peoples.' How completely false and puerile are all these assertions, appears from an examination of the mountain region now under discussion.
Of all these sections of 'Alleghania,' none is of more importance to the Federal Union than East Tennessee. Immensely rich in minerals, with a healthy and agreeable climate and much rich soil, it is one of the finest countries on earth, lying under the temperate zone, and developes the most extraordinary physical perfection in the human form. Its proportion of slaves to freemen is no greater than in the other mountain regions of the South--its area is about equivalent to that of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island united. In considering this with the loyalty of its inhabitants, and in studying 'Cumberland Gap,' the great natural highway of the Alleghany Range, the observer appreciates with pleasure the remark of Secretary Chase, who, in a recent interview with certain eastern capitalists, disclaimed on behalf of the Government and of General M'Clellan any purpose to send the army into winter quarters, remarking with much significance that 'a glance at the map will perhaps astonish those who have