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SAMUEL TYNDALE WILSON |
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| CHAPTER I | |||
| Contents | Item I.D.# | Description | Thumbnail |
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THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS CHAPTER I THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS RELIEF maps of the United States show two extensive mountain systems traversing the country northward and southward on lines approximately parallel to the Mississippi river. The Rocky Mountain System In the West the great Rocky Mountains and the Sierras lift eleven states and territories to their own lofty elevation, and to a large extent decide the character of the industries of the populations that occupy those states and territories. The course of empire has pushed irresistibly into, among, and over these mountains, until now almost every nook of them has been occupied in the interests of mining, lumbering, cattle-raising, farming, manufacturing, and health-seeking. That which Daniel Webster once referred to contemptuously as a desert has come to be re- |
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2 THE SOUTHERN garded by the world as an exhaustless storehouse of wealth and health. The Appalachian Mountain System In the East, corresponding
to the Rockies of the West, there stretches another less massive and yet
most noble mountain system, the worthy counterpart of the sister
system of the Occident. While second to the Rocky Mountains, the
Appalachians are not second to the Alpine system of Europe, for the
southern Appalachians alone have a greater area than have the Alps.
Geologists find the genesis of the system as far northeast as the hills of
Newfoundland, and its exodus among the hills of northern Alabama. Within
its limits the system embraces about 175,000 square miles of mountain
territory as against |
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| wils003 | MOUNTAINEERS 3 as passed; and when railroads completed the victory of transportation and made easy the passage of these American Alps, the people almost forgot the mountains and, to all intents, the Alleghanies ceased to be; and the Rocky Mountains usurped, in their turn, the place of dread and importance. But the Appalachians, in slighted state, reigned on in their silence and isolation, awaiting the time of their rediscovery. The Northern Appalachians The northern Appalachians are not so compact or continuous or extensive as are their southern sisters ; consequently , since they did not so seriously bar the progress of westward emigration, they were not so much dreaded nor, when conquered, were they so much ignored. Their population was for the most part assimilated into the economic and social life of the surrounding country. The development of the coal industry in the Pennsylvanian Alleghanies contributed largely to the victory of society over the mountains, and even founded among them many important and prosperous cities. So also the Green Mountains, the White Mountains, the Adirondacks, the Catskills, the Hudson Highlands, and the Pennsylvanian Alleghanies are in social and economic and political life either part and parcel of the commonwealths in which |
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| wils004 | 4 THE SOUTHERN they lie, or are so much overrun by health-seekers and pleasure-hunters and wealth-exploiters as to be perforce largely identified in culture and interests with the territory contiguous to them. The problems presented by the northern Appalachians have been in the main satisfactorily solved by the people of the states in which the mountains lie ; and good schools and the other agents of civilization have in the main equalized the culture of these sections with that of the surrounding territory. The mountains in themselves naturally attract much attention, being located as they are so near the great centers of population. There is even an Appalachian Mountain Club, organized in the patriotic cycle of 1876, to preserve the mountain forests and resorts, to provide accurate maps, and to publish scientific data respecting the northern Appalachians. The Southern Appalachians The Appalachians south of Mason and Dixon's line extend from the southern border of Pennsylvania to the northern counties of Georgia and Alabama. They include the mountain masses and the enclosed valleys and coves of nine states. The region they occupy is about six hundred miles long and two hundred miles wide. Geologists and others familiar with the Appalachians tell us |
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| wils005 | MOUNTAINEERS 5 that the southern highland region may be said to contain forty-two counties of western Virginia, four of Maryland, thirty-five of West Virginia, twenty-eight of eastern Kentucky, forty-six of East Tennessee and of the eastern border of Middle Tennessee, twenty- four of western North Carolina, four of western South Carolina, twenty-six of northern Georgia, and seventeen of northern Alabama. The total area is 101,880 square miles. This area is much larger than that of England, Wales, and Scotland combined; almost half as large as Germany and France respectively ; twice as large as the Empire State of New York; and as large as all New England together with New Jersey, Delaware, and two Marylands. Indeed this mountain domain of the South is imperial in its dimensions. Their Scenery The scenery in the Appalachians is sublime in the extreme. The mountains increase in height as they fare south-ward, until in Carolina and Tennessee they tower six thousand feet heavenward. About twenty of them rise higher than Mount Washington, while the tragedy crowned head of Mount Mitchell reaches an elevation of 6,711 feet above the sea. Their wooded summits, plateaus, declivities, and gorges present an endless variety of views that in many places rival in picturesqueness |
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| wils0006 | 6 THE SOUTHERN those seen in the most famous of mountain ranges. The flora and the fauna of the northern temperate zone flourish as if in a national exhibit of a zone's riches. Peaks and ranges, cliffs and crags, cascades and waterfalls, laurel glade and fern brake, lie in a great silence broken only by the song of many birds and the shrill stridence of insistent insects. The charm of the mountains enthralls more and more those visitors that are familiar with them, until at least some sojourners would fain remain within their magic circle forever. Their Climate The climate is equable and invigorating,
the ozone-laden air being a tonic that to the initiated renders the
mountains an ideal health-resort. Health is in every breeze and gushes
from thousands of purest springs of freestone and mineral waters. The
section is fitted to be a playground and sanitarium for a great nation,
and ere long will so be recognized. Many diseases yield to the salubrious
influences of the air and water and quiet. The cultivated sections in the great and fertile valleys produce liberally the usual crops to be found in the central states, the staples being corn and wheat. The purely mountain soil, sandy and light, yields more |
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MOUNTAINEERS 7 reluctant crops of corn and potatoes. Fruits flourish when cared for. North Carolina apples are famous throughout the South. Hogs and cattle are produced in large numbers; and, were it not for sheep-killing dogs, the section might be the greatest sheep-raising country in the world. The natural resources of the Appalachians are almost limitless. A king's ransom is in every county, if it were only collected. The almost unbroken forests are rich with timber; and the earth is bursting with coal, iron, copper, zinc, salt, mica, lead, and other minerals. Marble and other building stones are found in exhaustless store. The region in its scientific aspect is one of richest interest to zoologist, entomologist, botanist, dendrologist, geologist, and mineralogist ; while in a practical way it is of most alluring attractiveness to the wide-awake prospector and investor. Population The population of the region is collectively large
and comparatively small. In the two hundred and twenty-six |
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| wils008 | 8 THE SOUTHERN and California. Yet this large aggregate was scattered over so vast a territory that the average to the square mile was only thirty- eight, making the teeming mountains after all an exceedingly sparsely settled part of the Union. Collected in one body, the mountaineers of the South would make one state almost the size of Ohio; or one city a trifle larger than Greater New York; but the 13,305 square miles of Massachusetts and Connecticut contain as many inhabitants as do the southern Appalachians with their 101,880 square miles, an area nearly eight times that of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Seclusion The tide of westward emigration, as has been said,
flowed over the southern Appalachians, but ebbed away from them as the
advancing flood flowed westward. Domestic emigration and foreign
immigration alike pushed on toward the magic West. The Civil War served
also to divert attention from the mountain ranges of the South. And so the
nation went on about its toil and expansion, practically oblivious of one
of its most valuable possessions. |
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| wils009 | MOUNTAINEERS 9 And as the entire section rested in seclusion from the nation's knowledge, so did each part of the purely mountain region live in practical isolation from the rest of the section. There were no pikes or well-built highways; oftentimes only bridle-paths led from settlement to settlement or from cabin to cabin. There are almost no natural lines of travel or transportation, such as are so liberally afforded in the northern Appalachians by navigable rivers and lakes. For several hundred miles north and south no railroad crossed the mountains. Even at present there are many counties that are not entered by a railroad. And during the rainy season, travel even by horseback is difficult in the mountain recesses. Thus the mountaineer's horizon was limited by the summits that rose on every side, shutting him in from the rest of the nation and forcing him to find his world in his own small neighborhood. And so the mountains have merely rested in what Ruskin would call their " great peacefulness of light," unknown and unknowing so far as the outside world has been concerned. |
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| wils010 | 10 THE SOUTHERN
CHAPTER II Like the rest of Americans, the mountain people
are of a composite race. There is probably no unmixed strain of blood in
any community of the United States. While it is true that family origin is
not so important as personal character, it is nevertheless true that
heredity has much to do with accounting for that character, and merits
consideration from every thoughtful student of history. While it is undeniable that the mountain people of the South are a composite race, the fact remains that they are probably of about as pure a Scotch-Irish stock as we can boast in America. The principal element is Scotch- Irish, as is indisputably proved by history, by tradition, and by the family names prevailing in the mountains. All the region about the mountains was settled principally by Scotch- Irish; the unbroken traditions of the mountaineers agree that the pioneers were Scotch- Irish; while the names of the people are, |
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| wils011 | MOUNTAINEERS 11 fully fifty per cent, of them, Scotch or Scotch-Irish. It may be added, too, that there still survive most interesting phases of life and idioms of language that are Scotch or Scotch-Irish in origin. No argument based on the present condition of the mountaineers can suffice to render doubtful this proof of the prevailing strain in the mountain stock. Other Strains There are, especially in the valleys, numerous
Huguenot names that once belonged to the noble people who were driven from
France by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and the dragonades that
followed that revocation. Most of these Huguenots came to the mountains by
the way of Charleston and Savannah, the great Huguenot ports of entry for
the South; while others came with the Scotch- Irish from Ulster where they
had taken refuge. |
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| wils012 | 12 THE SOUTHERN Scotch-Irish Evolution. In this composite race, then, the Scotch- Irish element largely predominates. And surely that fact lends an added interest to the study of the problem of the mountains, for there is no sturdier element in American character than that contributed by the Scotch-Irish. That the " Plantation of Ulster," which took place as long ago as the days of James the First and Shakespeare, should directly and prevailingly affect the character and possibilities of the Atlantic highlands of America, is one of the facts that emphasize the value and the romance of the philosophy of history. The Irish rebellion against Queen Elizabeth had been suppressed with relentless energy and the confiscated estates of Ulster were peopled by the so-called " Plantation of Ulster." Protestant emigrants, mainly from the Scotch Lowlands but partly from London itself, at the command of King James took the places of the evicted Irish, and established the most intensely Protestant section of the British dominion. Scotch the colonists entered, and Scotch they remained in blood, for intermarriage with the Romanists was prohibited by law and by religion; but Scotch- Irish they became, as we Americans call them, in consideration of their Irish home. |
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| wils013 | MOUNTAINEERS 13 At first they prospered greatly; but as early as 1633 England began to maltreat them, violating all her pledges and forfeiting all her claims to their loyalty by a policy of perfidy and persecution. The English State spoiled the Ulster yeomanry, and the English Church cropped the ears of the non-conforming Presbyterians. But just as all of Laud's emissaries and Claverhouse's dragoons could not force the Covenanters in old Scotland to conform to Episcopacy, so were all the acts and agents of Parliament unable to coerce the Scotch-Irish cousins of the Covenanters in their Ulster home. But so unbearable did their position become that there occurred what Dr. Mclntosh called a " Transplantation of Ulster " to America and religious freedom. Three hundred thousand of them found their way to America in search of liberty of worship. And in the New World, this prolific race became a nation-founding people. Their annals have been recorded by many historians and their achievements have made imperishable their history. " Transplantation of Ulster" They landed at Boston, and Philadelphia, and Charleston, and leaving behind them the sea-coast and the colonies that had their established religions, they advanced inland to form a second tier of colonies. From |
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| wils014 | 14 THE SOUTHERN Pennsylvania they pressed southward down the Shenandoah Valley and under the Blue Ridge till they spread out southeastward to meet the Charleston immigrants, or pushed down southwestward past Abingdon into the valley of East Tennessee and up the trail of Daniel Boone into Kentucky. As they advanced they took possession of the mountains and valleys of the Appalachians. The gravestones in eastern Pennsylvania and Virginia and East Tennessee mark the successive migrations of some strong old Presbyterian families. These immigrants brought with them their Scotch-Irish convictions and characteristics branded into them by the fires of persecution. Their invasion of the mountains began in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Roosevelt's Tribute In the " Winning of the West " Mr. Roosevelt pays the following tribute to the Scotch- Irish pioneers : " The back- woodsmen were Americans by birth and parentage, and of mixed race ; but the dominant strain in their blood was that of the Presbyterian Irish the Scotch-Irish as they were often called. Full credit has been awarded the Roundhead and the Cavalier for their leadership in our history; nor have we been altogether blind to the deeds of the Hollander and the Hugue- |
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| wils015 | MOUNTAINEERS 15 not; but it is doubtful if we have wholly realized the importance of the part played by that stern and virile people, the Irish, whose preachers taught the creed of Knox and Calvin. These Irish representatives of the Covenanters were in the West almost what the Puritans were in the Northeast, and more than the Cavaliers were in the South. Mingled with the descendants of many other races, they formed the kernel of the distinctively and intensely American stock who were the pioneers of our people in their march westward." Three Classes of Mountaineers. A century and a half have passed away and the men of the mountains of to-day are the descendants of some of those sterling pioneers . They have held lonely state for several generations in their Appalachian homes ; but they are still there to give account of themselves, and to face the providential future. There have developed among these dwellers in the mountains three distinct classes, that must be recognized by every judicious student of their history. Class One Is Helping (1) There are the large numbers of them that
have occupied the fertile and extensive valleys of the Shenandoah and East
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| wils016 | 16 THE SOUTHERN teaus, and have established centers of trade and commerce that have developed such prosperous cities and towns as Chattanooga, Knoxville, Johnson City, Bristol, Asheville, Salem, Roanoke, Lexington, Stanton, and Harrisonburgh. These mountaineers, or rather valley- dwellers, have to deal only with such questions as affect other intelligent sections of our land. They send out missionaries to the ends of the earth, and have as rich and pure a life as have any urban or country people of our southland. They outnumber the other two classes combined. To apply to them any hasty generalizations suggested by a study of the third class is simply unpardonable. Class Two Will Help (2) Away from these centers of wealth or competence, and culture, and refinement, there are two other classes more affected by their mountain environment than are these others that merely live in sight of the mountains or in highland communities that are lowland " in their development. There are, first, the true, worthy mountaineers that deserve far more of praise than of dispraise. While their isolated and hard life, remote from the centers of culture, has contracted their wants and the supply of those wants, and has forced them to do without a multitude of the " necessities " and conveniences and |
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| A MOUNTAIN FARM
ON THE HILLSIDE |
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| wils017 | MOUNTAINEERS 17 luxuries that seem indispensable to many other people of the twentieth century, they have kept that which is really worth while, namely, their virility and force of character. The fact is that Nature, in accordance with her marvelous method of compensations, has endowed these hardy mountaineers with some sterner qualities in lieu of the more Chesterfieldian ones of more favored society; qualities that render them in some respects stronger and more resourceful than their more pampered kinsmen of the valley or the plain. They have escaped many of the vices and follies that are sapping the life of modern society. They have nerves, in this day of neurasthenia and neuremia. They know something of all the necessary arts, in these days when centralized labor gives each workman only a part of one art to which to apply himself. The mountaineer of this class eats what he raises, and applies to the store for only coffee and sugar to supplement what his acres produce. He does his own horseshoeing, carpentering, shoemaking, and sometimes he weaves homespun. He is the most hospitable host on earth and heartily enjoys his guest, providing that guest has the courtesy to show his appreciation of what is offered him. His honesty coexists with a native shrewdness |
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| wils018 | 18 THE SOUTHERN that is sometimes a revelation to the unscrupulous visitor that would take advantage of him in a trade. He is usually amply able to take care of himself. Indeed no American has a livelier native intelligence. To speak of this class of mountaineers as meriting patronizing disdain is to show oneself to be a most superficial observer. Many of these men of the mountains do perhaps need much that can be given from without the Appalachians, but they have a reserve strength that, when aroused, will speedily prove them the peers of any people. Class Three Needs Help (3) There is a third and much smaller class
of mountaineers of which not so much good can be said. They correpond to
while entirdy dif |
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| wils019 | MOUNTAINEERS 19 chapel; or New York by the slums; or any community by the submerged tenth. This third class consists of the drift, the flotsam and jetsam that are cast up here and there among the mountains. They are the shiftless, ambitionless degenerates, such as are found wherever men are found. Usually they own little or no land and eke out a precarious existence, as only a beneficent Providence that cares for the birds and other denizens of the forest could explain. Modifications of These Classes The proportion of Scotch-Irish names may not be so great among these people, but many such names are found among them. This class would be a very hopeless one were it not for a quality that will be referred to again namely, the fact that it can be made over in one generation. It need hardly be said that, as in all classifications of men on the basis of character and condition, there are many gradations among these three classes; and, indeed, that the classes themselves merge into one another, so that at times it is impossible to say just where one ends and another begins. But why be too nice in determining metes and bounds? Is there not even in the great metropolis a slum problem, and is there not a Fifth Avenue problem both with in- |
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| wils020 | 20 THE SOUTHERN determinate boundaries ? The worthiest question anyone can ask himself is: How can I best help any brother man of mine, of any rank and race, submerged or non-submerged, to realize his high calling in Christ Jesus ? "Mountaineers"not "Mountain Whites". A nomenclature that is objectionable to the persons named should, in courtesy, be modified to remove all unnecessary offense . Some writers have gotten into the habit of calling us modern Appalaches " mountain whites," a term that implies peculiarity and, inferentially, inferiority. We are not deeply in love with that nomenclature. It sounds too much like " poor white trash," the most opprobrious term known in the South. Fancy how it would sound to hear the inhabitants of the Buckeye State spoken of as " Ohio whites " ! They call themselves Ohioans, and we call ourselves " southern mountaineers " or " Highlanders," and of that name we are humbly proud. There is no evil hint in the word mountaineer in the Appalachians, but rather the reverse an honorable ring. Better use no class name at all, if possible; but if one must be used, let it be a generous one. A letter was not long since received at a mountain post-office addressed, " To the Teacher of the Mountain White School." Put |
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| wils021 | MOUNTAINEERS 21 yourself in the place of the proud-spirited people of that village, and you can the better appreciate the fact that the thoughtlessly addressed letter was of no help whatever to the teacher. The ancestors of the mountaineers left Europe in search of a land where a man might be " a man for a' that," and the descendants of those ancestors are jealous of their American peerage. They are courteous only to the courteous. They can endure no " I-am- greater-than-thou " air. Surely they have a right to expect of their friends the courtesy of an acceptable designation and the avoidance of what is to them an objectionable epithet. They are mountaineers or highlanders, and never " mountain whites." |
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| wils022 | 22 THE SOUTHERN
CHAPTER III |
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| wils023 | MOUNTAINEERS 23 best part of a lifetime. Their days were spent in arduous toil, and their nights were too often wasted in anxious vigils. The annals of the frontiersmen are full of the stories of daring exploits and uncomplaining endurance. Such service was the cost that civilization pays for new conquests, but it was paid not by the salaried emissaries of an organized government, nor by the subsidized forces of great trading companies, but by individuals that went always at their own charges, and sometimes at the cost of all things ; more often than not, hindered rather than encouraged by the unappreciative governments they had left behind them when they plunged into the depths of the forest. Established Christianity They took with them the Bible and
Protestant Christianity, and established their hereditary faith in every
district Established of the mountains There is no infidelity native to the
Appalachians. An infidel is an imported monstrosity. The only heresy is
that of conduct. Men believe in the Bible as the only infallible rule of
faith and practise. " Thus saith the Lord," when once ascertained, is the
end of all their frequent theological controversies. |
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| wils024 | 24 THE SOUTHERN faded from the memory, but the Orangemen of Ulster are not more inveterate foes of Romanism than are the southern mountaineers. Established Protestantism A traveler in the Blue Ridge stopped
at a cabin for a gourdful of water. As the mistress of the cabin, " on
hospitable thoughts intent," was bringing the water, a little child clung
to her skirts and hindered her. In her annoyance she reproved the child,
and in a warning voice said, " You must be good or Clavers will get you."
Thus has the once-dreaded name of Claverhouse survived |
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| wils025 | MOUNTAINEERS 25 forgotten, old distinctions abolished, social equality acquired even more importance than unchecked individualism. . . . This phase of democracy, which is destined to continue so long as frontier life retains any importance, can nowhere be so well studied in its beginnings as among the Presbyterian population of the Appalachian region in the eighteenth century." Established Civil Government Out of the chaos of individualism,
the frontiersmen soon evolved all the necessary elements of civil
government. In many places they |
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| wils026 | 26 THE SOUTHERN Shorter Catechism ground that his work was one of " necessity and mercy." In many places, however, the Sabbath is in as extreme peril as it is in our great cities. Established Education The fatal mistake of the pioneers, if it
was not in many cases an unavoidable necessity, was their allowing the
hardships of their lot to prevent them from giving their children as good
an education as they them |
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| wils027 | MOUNTAINEERS 27 petuated at the cost of unbounded sacrifice on the part of able Presbyterian ministers, at least six of the so-called " small colleges " to which the people of our generation are so generously paying eloquent tribute. Service to the Nation. The service that the southern
mountaineers have rendered in national matters can hardly be
overestimated. They were possessed by a fierce love of liberty, and
so the birthplace of American liberty very appro |
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| wils028 | 28 THE SOUTHERN fense from the armies of the redcoats, on the other hand, their insignificant numbers and remoteness from their only friends exposed the frontiersmen to the deadly assaults of the Indians, the allies of Britain. Share in the Revolution The mountaineers have been called by Gilmore in the title of one of his books, "The Advance Guard of Civilization " ; and with equal appropriateness, in the title of another of his books, " The Rearguard of the Revolution." Twice during the Revolution, " the grand strategy " of the English planned simultaneous assaults upon the colonies from the coastline and the Indian frontier; and twice did the little band of Watauga settlers frustrate the successful carrying out of those sagacious and most sinister plans of campaign. In 1776, while four hundred and thirty-five men behind palmetto logs in Charleston beat off the British fleet with its five thousand sailors and seamen, Sevier and Shelby and their two hundred and ten backwoodsmen repulsed and defeated the Cherokees led by Oconostota and Dragging Canoe. Then from Georgia northward to Virginia, the frontiersmen swept in retributive wrath upon the Tory-led Indians, and dealt them such a blow as extorted from them an unwilling but at least a temporary peace. At the same time the Tories that in- |
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| wils029 | MOUNTAINEERS 29 fested the frontier were either driven out or forced to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederation. In 1779 when, on the coast, Savannah had been taken by Clinton's expedition, the frontier invasion was forestalled by the timely capture of all the ammunition stored for the coming campaign by the British and their allies at what is now Chattanooga, by seven hundred and fifty mountaineers led again by Shelby and Sevier. Thus were the southern colonies protected without help from the Colonies, by the woodsmen who while fighting for their own existence also contributed materially to the saving of the infant nation. Kings Mountain. Nor was this all the service that the frontiersmen rendered during the Revolution. The darkest hour of the War of Independence in the South was in 1780, when Charleston was captured by the English, Gates and DeKalb were defeated at Camden, and the interior was overrun by the victorious British soldiery. Washington said: " I have almost ceased to hope." Especially troublesome was the presence of Colonel Ferguson, who established himself with two hundred regulars in the western border counties, attempting to draw to the royal banner the rougher element that inhabited the foothills and were neither planters nor moun- |
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| wils030 | 30 THE SOUTHERN taineers. Two thousand Tories had joined the standard, and Ferguson was threatening the frontier. In August he sent word to Shelby threatening to " march his army over the mountains, to hang the patriot leaders, and to lay the country waste with fire and sword." The Indians had rallied from their confusion of the previous year, and were menacing the settlements; but not for a moment did the " rearguard " hesitate when they saw their duty and their opportunity. When all other opposition in the South was practically dormant, Shelby and Sevier formed the instant purpose not to act on the defensive by guarding the mountain passes against the foe, but the rather bravely to issue from their natural defenses and to assault and capture Colonel Ferguson and his force. The story of the Battle of Kings Mountain is too long to tell here, but no more heroic or romantic chapter is found in our nation's history. The mountain clans mustered on the Watauga and a draft was taken, not to decide who should go, but who should stay to defend the settlements. By September twenty-fifth, eight hundred and forty mountain men were ready for the fight, including four hundred " Backwater Presbyterians " under Colonel Campbell. Of the six leaders, five were Pres- |
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| wils031 | MOUNTAINEERS 31 byterian elders. Dr. Doak, the founder of Washington College, committed the expedition in prayer to the God of battles, and addressed the volunteer soldiery, closing his address with the words:
A few days later, at Kings Mountain, after great hardships and
sufferings, nine hundred and sixty militiamen surrounded and took by storm
an entrenched natural fortress, and captured over eleven hundred English
soldiers. |
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| wils032 | 32 THE SOUTHERN against their savage allies at Boyd's Creek, three hundred miles distant. War of '12 and the Mexican War. The mountaineers again guarded the frontier for the Government during the second war with Britain. Many and volunteers served in the northern armies, but most of them served under General Jackson in the " Creek War " and at New Orleans. The intensity of the patriotism may be judged by a philippic against laggards preached in 1813 by Dr. Isaac Anderson in his Maryville pulpit. His text was, " Curse ye Meroz, saith the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty." " British rum and Albion gold have roused the Creeks' lust for rapine and blood. We are exposed to their incursions; let us carry the war into their country, and go in such num- bers as to overwhelm them at once. Apathy on this subject would be criminal. The call of country is the call of God." A few weeks later one of the patriot doctor's patriot schoolboys, young Ensign Sam Houston, was the second to mount the breast-works of the Indian stronghold on the Tallapoosa. Three severe wounds he received that day, but he lived to be a figure of national |
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| BIBLE-READERS HOME, JARROLD'S VALLEY, W.VA. | One Image | ||
| wils033 | MOUNTAINEERS 33 importance. The men of the mountains crushed the Creeks in a campaign of many battles; and then at New Orleans struck the British the heaviest blow that they received during the war. In 1817 the only volunteers General Jackson took with him to the Seminole War were eleven hundred Tennesseeans. In the war with Mexico, so eager were the mountaineers that, at the first call in Tennessee for three thousand men, thirty thousand volunteered their services. The state became known as " the Volunteer State," but the entire Appalachian section also merited the name. The Civil War. Naturally in the days of the Civil War, there were divisions and alienations and feuds in the Appalachians. Many on the Virginian side of the mountains and among the North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama mountains, espoused the cause of the Confederacy, and made as good soldiers as the valorous hosts of the South could boast. " Stonewall " Jackson was a mountaineer indubitably of the first class, and his famous " Stonewall " brigade was made up largely of the men of the hills, of The West Virginia, Kentucky, and East Tennessee mountains were overwhelmingly for the Union; while, also, there were many men of the other sections referred to that fought for |
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| wils034 | 34 THE SOUTHERN the Union. No better soldiers were found on either side of the great debate at arms than were those that enlisted from the mountains. While it may be an exaggeration to say that the loyalty of the Appalachians decided the great contest, that loyalty certainly contributed substantially to the decision; for the mountains cleft the Confederacy with a mighty hostile element that not merely subtracted great armies from the enrollment of the Confederacy, but even necessitated the presence of other armies for the control of so large a disaffected territory. The Federal forces actually recruited from the states of the southern Appalachians were as considerable in number as were the armies of the American Revolution gathered from all the thirteen colonies and considerably exceeded the total of both mighty armies that fought at Gettysburg, while those from East Tennessee alone numbered over thirty thousand men. These soldiers were not conscripted or attracted by bounty, but rather in most cases ran the gantlet through hostile forces for one, two, or three hundred miles to reach a place where they could enlist under the flag of their country. The congressional district in East Tennessee in which the writer lives claims the distinction of having sent a larger percentage of its population into the Union |
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| wils035 | MOUNTAINEERS 35 army than did any other congressional district in the entire country. The story of the loyal mountaineers is as romantic and thrilling a one as was ever told by minstrel or by chronicler of the halcyon days of chivalry. No doubt their position was one of the divinely ordained influences that contributed to that outcome of the fratricidal strife which all Americans now recognize to have been providential and, therefore, best. Spanish-American War. The happy union of later days was most auspiciously manifested in the service rendered side by side by the sons and grandsons of the veterans of both armies of the sixties, as these younger Americans united to free Cuba from Spanish tyranny. Of the men enlisted during the Spanish-American War, a little army gathered from the states of the southern mountains a number far in excess of the quota to be expected from those states. The officers testified heartily to the superior quality of the young mountaineers as soldiers and campaigners. Said one of the officers : " The soldiers from the mountains of the South were the best soldiers we had in the war." This chapter would be incomplete were it not to call attention, before closing, to the |
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| wils036 | 36 THE SOUTHERN service rendered their country by individuals of this mountain region. Service of Individuals. A mere mention of a few representative
names will emphasize the great part that, in spite of all their seclusion,
the Appalachians have had in |
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| wils037 | MOUNTAINEERS 37 CHAPTER IV THE APPALACHIAN PROBLEM THE problems that America confronts and must solve are legion in number. There are problems national and problems sectional; but the national problems belong also to the sections, and the sectional ones belong also to the nation. Away down South in Dixie land, there are two great problems one, black ; and the other, white. Dixie's Two Problems The black problem is of vastly the greater importance because it affects the peace, prosperity, and civilization of The Black the entire south if not of the entire nation. It is a problem to the right solution of which the best efforts of patriots must, perhaps for a long time to come, be most faithfully dedicated. It demands the best human wisdom, and, above all, that wisdom which cometh from above, profitable to direct. While we lend our most loyal endeavor to the right solution of this supreme problem |
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| wils038 | 38 THE SOUTHERN a solution that shall please our common Lord and Master we should imitate the methods of the divine Mathematician, and not confine ourselves to one problem alone, but rather seek also the solution of other contemporary, coincident, and pressing problems. The second problem is a white one; it is the Appalachian one. It is presented principally by the third class of The White c |
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| wils039 | MOUNTAINEERS 39 seclusion, and sometimes buried in backwoodsman idleness and illiteracy. The problem is simply this: How are we to bring these belated and submerged blood brothers of ours, to the completer enjoyment of twentieth-century civilization and Christianity ? The Problem and Qwn j^ ^ ^ Qut in _ An American Problem Whatever else may be said of our problem, it must be agreed that it is a peculiarly American one. In most of the heights of the Appalachians, a foreigner is almost as rare an object as an American would be in the wilds of Tibet. An Indian in his war paint in a crowded city street would hardly excite more genuine interest and curiosity than does a non-English-speaking visitor in the recesses of the Great Smokies. The percentage of foreign-born population in the mountains is less than one per cent. There is at least one spot undisturbed by foreign immigration. Only in some mining communities are there many foreigners. West Virginia has five mountain counties that have an average of less than seven persons of foreign birth to |
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| wils040 | 40 THE SOUTHERN each county. Kentucky has one county with no foreigner, and thirteen counties with only from one to seven of foreign birth. Virginia has thirteen counties with from none to eight of foreign birth. Tennessee has twelve counties with from none to seven of foreign birth. North Carolina has six counties containing together a grand total of eleven foreigners, the equivalent of just one ordinary mountain family. South Carolina has a county with a lonely half dozen foreigners. Georgia has eight counties with from none to seven of foreign birth. And Alabama closes the procession with three counties that have an aggregate foreign population of fifty-one. The problem is also a purely Protestant one. There is no other locality in the English-speaking world where a parallel in this regard can A Protestant Problem be found to the conditions in the Appalachians ; for, except in a few towns in the valleys, not a Roman Catholic can be found! And the Protestant prejudice is intense. When the writer was only a lad, he once found himself in very bad repute among some mountaineers because he was mistaken for a Roman Catholic. He rose to his feet to lead the opening prayer in a mountain Sabbath school. In that locality it was for some rea- |
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| wils041 | MOUNTAINEERS 41 son the universal custom to kneel in prayer, and some one explained the innovation of the visitor by saying that it was rumored that Roman Catholics stand in prayer. The stranger was not reinstated in public confidence until he told the people that Presbyterians, too, stand, as did Ezra and the congregation of Israel in the offering of prayer. Mission teachers have sometimes occasioned serious trouble for themselves by teaching their pupils the Apostles' Creed with its fatally misunderstood sentence, " I believe in the holy catholic Church." No amount of footnotes or oral explanation could render the sentence innocuous, or restore confidence in the supposed heretic who had attempted to teach it to the children. The mountaineers are unanimously and unequivocally Protestant; and, as has already been stated, Rome has, for some reason, made no effort whatever to proselyte these dwellers in the hill country. The Appalachian problem is almost solely a white one. In1860, there were but few slaves in all the Appalachians, and almost all of A White Problem these were in the valleys. Even in 1900 there were but comparatively few colored in the Appalachians. There are some people in the recesses of the southern mountains that have |
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| wils042 | 42 THE SOUTHERN never seen a colored man. In " The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come," the hero Chad saw a negro for the first time in his life. He was amazed, and asked what was the matter with the man's face. When informed, he braced up and said: " It don't skeer me." Five mountain counties of West Virginia have within their Tborders from twelve to thirty-six colored people. Kentucky has two counties that report only one and two colored respectively. Virginia has one county without a colored inhabitant, and another with only five. North Carolina has one county with only twenty-six. Tennessee has five counties with from eleven to seventy-nine. Even Georgia and Alabama have five counties with only from seven to one hundred and eighty-one colored people. The only part of the South that is not directly concerned in the race problem is the purely mountain region. The two problems of the South the colored and the white one in their territorial application almost exclude each other. The Appalachian problem is, of course, a country problem. Perpetuating, as the geographical adjective does, the e r . ., - T ,. name of a tribe of Indians, A Country Problem the Appalaches, it suggests an outdoor problem, one near to Nature's heart. Save in an |
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| wils043 | MOUNTAINEERS 43 exceptional case like Asheville, there are no cities in the very mountains, though they flourish in the great valleys of the Blue Ridge and East Tennessee. The people are practically all farmers, and are unspoiled by the contaminations of city life. And their life is ideally bucolic. As has already been said, if it were not for the sheep-killing dogs, the mountaineers might easily be the greatest pastoral people of modern times. Nevertheless the problem is a varied and somewhat complex one. The endless variety of conditions among the various settlements is apparent to one who has any intimate acquaintance with the people. The mountaineers are homogeneous as to race, and heterogeneous as to conditions. A Varied and Complex Problem It is an utter mistake to assume that, because some by no means all of the mountain counties of Kentucky are cursed by the vendetta, that reminder of the clan vengeance of the Gaels, it is also true that the mountains of East Tennessee and western North Carolina are likewise afflicted by the same scourge. The feud is unknown in most of the Appalachians. So also is it a mistake to suppose the feudists themselves the incarnation of all evil. The Presbyterian bishop who knew them best declared: "Feud leaders were |
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| wils044 | 44 THE SOUTHERN usually among the best, most honest, and successful men of the mountains ; and when they removed to other localities, made some of the best citizens." To assume that, because " wildcat " illicit distilling is done in some places in the mountains, the favorite occupation of the mass of the mountaineers is moonshining is absurd, and besides does great injustice to a valiant host of temperance men scattered all over the mountains. There are many counties that have not a saloon within their limits. Could a spiritual and moral barometer test the condition of all the purely mountain communities, a vast variety of records would be given. Some neighborhoods have stood by the Sabbath, the home, morals, and religion, while many others have wandered far astray. Then, also, as might be expected, superficial estimates are often as apt to be too harsh as they are to be too favorable. For example, one of the most inaccessible counties of western North Carolina has been widely advertised as a very immoral county. [Madison] One of our ministers, however, after a residence of several years in the heart of that impeached county while engaged in educational and religious work, declared that he never before lived in a place where there is so little secret vice, and that he has known of almost no illegiti- |
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| wils045 | MOUNTAINEERS 45 mate births in the county during his residence there. While the conditions there are primitive, and large families are being reared in single-roomed cabins, the logically inferred immorality does not after all prevail. Some times under a rough, suspicious, and repellent exterior, the heart beats true. There are, however, many places in the Appalachians where the conditions are deplorable and call loudly for reformation. Some must receive help from outside sources or perish; while, as we have seen, others will themselves lend a most effective helping hand in the making of the new mountains that patriotism and philanthropy unite in desiring. The problem is, of course, not so complex as is that which concerns the redemption and evangelization of the exceptional populations of the great West, or the hordes in the polyglot city of New York; but it is nevertheless sufficiently complex to challenge the best zeal and discretion of the Church of Christ. It must also be said with emphasis that our problem is an exceedingly delicate one. The highlanders are Scotch-Irish in their high-spiritedness and proud independence. A Delicate Problem Those who would help them must do so in a perfectly frank and kindly way, showing al- ways genuine interest in them but never a |
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| wils046 | 46 THE SOUTHERN trace of patronizing condescension. As quick as a flash the mountaineer will recognize and resent the intrusion of any such spirit, and will refuse even what he sorely needs, if he detects in the accents or the demeanor of the giver any indication of an air of superiority. The worker among the mountaineers must " meet with them on the level and part on the square," and conquer their oftentimes unreasonable suspicion by genuine brotherly friend- ship. The less he has to say of the superiority of other sections or of the deficiencies of the mountains, the better for his cause. The fact is that comparatively few workers are at first able to pass muster in this regard, under the searching and silent scrutiny of the mountain people. Whatever else may be said, the problem is surely an urgent one, whether we take into account local or national considerations. The men of the mountains need us; and surely we need them. Problem We must add their sturdy strength to the embattled forces of our Christian Americanism in the great war of the ages that is being waged in our day and in our land for the supremacy of sound government and for the spread of God's glorious gospel. Most of the Appalachians are with us al- |
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| wils047 | MOUNTAINEERS 47 ready; what added strength it would give us to have the entire army of the four millions on our side in this momentous conflict ! They are ours by traditions and prejudices; the day will come when they will be ours as intelligent and efficient allies.
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| wils048 | 48 THE SOUTHERN
CHAPTER V THE MOUNTAINEERS' REASON FOR BEING BEFORE going further into the discussion of the problem, it will be an interesting task to search out somewhat more in detail the philosophy of the formation of the problem. How did the mountaineers ever become mountaineers ? It might be enough to ask in reply: How has it come to pass that all mountains have their population? How They Became Mountaineers Nature abhors a vacuum, and wherever men can support themselves, they take possession and
establish their homes. The mountains of earth
all have their inhabitants. Even the bleak |
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| wils049 | MOUNTAINEERS 49 Some pioneers, whom Izaak Walton would call Piscators and Venators, chose the mountains for the game that then still frequented every mountainside Hunting and Fishing Attractive They had such
love of Nature and of the wild life, of hunting
and of fishing, that they shrank away from
civilized society because it lessened the opportunities for the pursuit of their craft. Like
Cooper's Leatherstocking, they tried to keep a
few days' march in advance of the vexations
and annoyances of civilization. The survival
of the savage strain that is in all of us is
to be reckoned with. It is hard even now for all the allurements of
business and society to win some men back from that blessed
spot in field or by flood where they tent in |
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| wils050 | 50 THE SOUTHERN hunters and trappers of to-day, learned in all the lore and craft of the woodsman. Available Some of the later pioneers for few of the
earlier ones settled in the mountains chose Few " Outlaws " It has been a theory with some that the
remoter mountaineers are the descendants of
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