Then we turned our eyes towards the south, and looked upon that land into which we were about to enter; beautiful it was to look upon, divided into valleys by spurs of the Cumberland Mountains, the ever-changing color of the landscape as the sun rose higher and higher, enabling us to see farther, until our eyes could discover the Smoky Mountains, the tops of which were covered with a smoke-like cloud, located beyond Knoxville.
As our eyes became tired of looking such a distance we fastened them upon the scenery near at hand, and found it as grand and romantic as any we had ever looked upon. Taken all together it was a most magnificent sight, and did not fail to arouse the most unenthusiastic nature in the battery.
While we are contemplating the scene before us, and before we commence our descent into these valleys, it will be well for us to consider what manner of people these are whom we are going to succor. That they are a peculiar people is perfectly evident from the fact that, living as they do in the almost geographical centre of the Slave States, they are by a large majority opposed to the institution of slavery. This is evidenced by the fact that the first abolition paper ever published in the United States emanated from a press in Jonesboro, Tennessee. Among the first abolition societies ever organized in this country were those of Eastern Tennessee, and in the year 1816 the Manumission Society, of Tennessee, held a meeting at Greenville, and issued an address advocating the abolition of slavery. Whence came this abhorrence of slavery, and this love of liberty? Certainly the origin of this people must have been different, totally different, from those who surrounded them on all sides.
I am indebted to my friend William Rule, Esq., of Knoxville, for the following account of the first settlement of East Tennessee:
"On the first day of May, 1769, a young farmer started out from the banks of the Yadkin River, in the State of North Carolina, accompanied by five stalwart hunters. It was about the time that the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers in Massachusetts were denying themselves the luxury of tea rather than pay tribute to a tyrant king. About the same time the House of Burgesses was dissolved by the Colonial Governor of Virginia, for having dared to pass resolutions condemning the Stamp Act, and Governor Tryon, of North Carolina, was serving his royal master by oppressing the patriots of that colony.
The name of the young farmer was James Robertson, the founder of the first colony in Tennessee; and one of the hunters who accompanied him was Daniel Boone, whose daring exploits are familiar to everyone. They went, as did the messengers of old sent by Moses, to spy out beyond the Alleghanies a land where they and those who sent them might live free from the restraints and oppression of English rulers.
One year afterwards a colony was established beside the swift-running waters of the beautiful Watango River. It was composed of men and women of heroic mould, filled with inspirations of patriotism, resolved that their abiding place in the wilderness, surrounded by savages, should be "Freedom's home or Glory's grave." It was the descendants of these patriots who became the first Abolitionists. It was these same people that, in February, 1861, when voting upon a proposition proposed by the Legislature as to whether a convention should or should not be called for the purpose of passing an ordinance of secession, declared by a majority of more than twenty-three thousand out of a total vote of forty-three thousand, against holding the convention."
It was these same people who furnished to the Union army during the Rebellion thirty-five thousand troops—two thousand more than our own State.
It should be borne in mind that these men could not go quietly and peacefully to enlisting places, situated in their own towns and cities, place their names upon the rolls in the presence of friends who encouraged and praised them for so doing, nor could they leave their families with the assurance that they would be looked after and taken care of by a kind and sympathetic State.
On the contrary they were obliged to travel on foot by night over mountains, swimming swift-running rivers, avoiding all roads, taking only unfrequented paths, because the Confederates, who realized that these men were bound to serve the Union cause, and were willing to endure any hardship or privation necessary to accomplish that object, were patrolling all the roads leading into Kentucky, for the purpose of capturing these patriots and carrying them off to rebel prisons. Journeys varying from two to three hundred miles were made by tens of thousands of these men, for the purpose of fighting for their country, leaving their families to the tender mercies of an enraged enemy.