This region, containing an area larger than the whole of
Massachusetts, was occupied by about four thousand blacks and one
hundred thousand whites,--a brave, hardy, rural population, with few
schools, scarcely any churches, and only one newspaper, but with that
sort of patriotism which grows among mountains and clings to its barren
hillsides as if they were the greenest spots in the universe. Among this
simple people Marshall was scattering firebrands. Stump-orators were
blazing away at every cross-road, lighting a fire which threatened to
sweep Kentucky from the Union. That done,--so early in the
war,--dissolution might have followed. To the Ohio canal-boy was
committed the task of extinguishing this conflagration. It was a
difficult task, one which, with the means at command, would have
appalled any man not made equal to it by early struggles with hardship
and poverty, and entire trust in the Providence that guards his country.
The means at command were twenty-five hundred men, divided into two
bodies, and separated by a hundred miles of mountain country.
Pages:
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185