The Cumberland Mountains, dividing Virginia from Kentucky, and extending farther southwest to separate East from Middle Tennessee, are the main watershed between the upper waters and sources of the two great rivers. This range is an elevated plateau rising about a thousand feet above the neighboring country and two thousand feet above the sea, the flat top being in some parts fifty miles across. On both sides the cliffs are precipitous, being much notched on the western declivities. Pioneer hunters coming out of Virginia discovered these mountains and the river in 1748, giving them the name of the Duke of Cumberland, the hero of Culloden, then the prominent military leader of England. These explorers came through the remarkable notch cut part way down in the range on the Kentucky-Tennessee boundary, just at the western extremity of Virginia,—the Cumberland Gap. This cleft, five hundred feet deep, is in some places only wide enough for a road, and extends for six miles through the ridge. It was for over a century the highway from southwestern Virginia into East Tennessee and southeastern Kentucky, being previously the trail followed by the Cherokees and other Indians in their movements east and west of the mountains. Through it came Daniel Boone and his companions from North Carolina into Kentucky, and the pass naturally became a great battleground of the Civil War. It is now utilized as the route for a branch of the Southern Railway from East Tennessee into Kentucky, traversing the Gap at about sixteen hundred feet elevation. In one place this road passes through a tunnel of over a half-mile, beginning in Tennessee, going under the corner of Virginia, and coming out in Kentucky. Iron is in abundance all about the Gap. During the war it was fortified by the Confederates, but in June, 1862, they were compelled to abandon it, and the Union troops took possession, being in turn forced out the following September. In September, 1863, the Union armies besieged and captured it, holding the Gap till the end of the war. The great curiosity of Cumberland Gap was the Pinnacle Rock, overhanging the narrow pass in a commanding position. This huge rock, weighing hundreds of tons, fell on Christmas night, 1899, awakening the village at the Gap as if by an earthquake, though no one was injured.
CHATTANOOGA AND ITS BATTLES.
The great Allegheny ranges, stretching from northeast to southwest, attain their highest altitude in western North Carolina. They come down southwestward out of Virginia in the Blue Ridge and other ranges, forming a high plateau, having the Blue Ridge on the eastern side, and on the western, forming the boundary between North Carolina and Tennessee, the chain known in various parts as the Stony, Iron, Great Smoky and Unaka Mountains, while beyond, to the northwest, the Cumberland Mountains extend in a parallel range through East Tennessee. There are also various cross-chains, among them the Black Mountains. In these ranges are eighty-two peaks that rise above five thousand feet and forty-three exceeding six thousand feet. The highest mountains of the Blue Ridge in North Carolina are the Grandfather and the Pinnacle, rising nearly six thousand feet. In the Great Smoky Mountains, Clingman's Dome is sixty-six hundred and sixty feet high and Mount Guyot sixty-six hundred and thirty-six feet. The highest peak of all is in the Black Mountains, and it is the highest east of the Rockies, Mount Mitchell rising sixty-six hundred and eighty-eight feet. Between and among these ranges are the sources of Tennessee River, in the Clinch River, the Holston and its North Fork, and the French Broad, their head streams coming westward out of Virginia and North Carolina through the mountain passes. The extensive mountain region they drain in North Carolina and East Tennessee is a most attractive district, noted as a health resort, and famous for the sturdy independence of its people, while along the Tennessee and upon the mountains near it were fought some of the greatest battles of the Civil War.
Upon the Tennessee River, at the head of navigation, and near the junction-point of the three States, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia, is Chattanooga, the Indian "crow's nest," now a busy manufacturing city and a great railroad centre, served by no less than nine different roads diverging in all directions, the iron, coal and timber of the neighboring country having given it an impetus that has brought a population of fifty thousand. This city has had all its development since the Civil War, and is the seat of Grant University of the Methodist Church, attended by six hundred students. It borders the river winding along the base of the Missionary Ridge and the famous Lookout Mountain. The battlefields upon them have been placed in control of a Government Commission, who have laid out the Chickamauga and Chattanooga Military Park, restoring all the roads used by troops during the battles, and marking the points of interest and the locations of regiments and batteries by tablets and monuments. There are sixty miles of driveways on the field, which embraces over five thousand acres of woodland cleared of underbrush and fifteen hundred acres of open ground. Here have been identified and accurately laid down the brigade lines of battle of seven distinct and successive engagements in the series of terrific contests that were fought, all of them being plainly marked. The fighting positions of batteries for both sides have been indicated by the location of guns of the same pattern as those used in the engagement. There are thus marked thirty-five battery positions on one side and thirty-three on the other, mounting over two hundred guns. The restoration to the conditions existing at the times of the battles is almost complete, both the Northern and Southern States that had troops engaged, actively aiding the historical labor. Lookout Mountain rises to the south of the city, its summit being over twenty-one hundred feet high, and it commands a superb view, extending over seven States. Inclined-plane railways ascend it, and there is a hotel at the top, and also another railway along the crest of the ridge. Upon the summit of this mountain, which is almost a plateau, the boundaries of the three States come together, and it overlooks to the northward the plain of Chattanooga and the windings of Tennessee River, traced far to the southwest along the base of the ridge into Alabama. The favorite post for the magnificent view from the mountain top is Point Rock, a jutting promontory of massive stone reared on high, and overhanging like a balcony the deep valley. Far beneath, the river in its grand and graceful sweeping curves forms the famous Moccasin Bend, which almost enfolds the city of Chattanooga, and then spreads beyond, fringed with forest and field, a waving silvery gleaming thread, until lost to view.
Beyond Missionary Ridge is the battlefield of Chickamauga, the "river of death," a stream flowing up from Georgia into the Tennessee, about twelve miles east of Chattanooga. General Rosecrans commanded the Union forces holding Chattanooga in 1863 and General Bragg the opposing Confederates. The conflict began September 19th by the Confederates attempting to turn Rosecrans' left wing and get possession of the roads leading into Chattanooga, and it continued fiercely for two days, when the Union forces withdrew, and the result was a nominal victory for the Confederates on the field, although Chattanooga and East Tennessee, the prize for which the battle was fought, remained in possession of the Union forces. This was one of the bloodiest battles of the war, thirty-four thousand being killed and wounded on both sides out of one hundred and twelve thousand engaged. Immediately after the battle, Rosecrans withdrew behind the fortifications of Chattanooga, while Bragg moved up and occupied positions upon Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain, extending his flanks to the Tennessee River above and below the city. He cut the communications westward, and the Union army was practically blockaded and in danger of starvation. Rosecrans was relieved and Grant took command. He ordered Sherman to join him, coming up from the southwest, and by the close of October had opened communication along the Tennessee River and secured ample supplies. Bragg, who felt he was in strong position, detached Longstreet with a large force to go northeast in November and attack Burnside at Knoxville. Sherman's army joined Grant on the 23d, and next day the battle began on Lookout Mountain, continuing on the 25th on Missionary Ridge, and Bragg was driven out of his position and his army pursued in disorder through the mountains, over six thousand prisoners being taken. As the Union forces ascended Lookout Mountain in the mist, this has been called the "Battle above the Clouds." Burnside was afterwards relieved at Knoxville, and these decisive victories, which broke the Confederate power in Tennessee, resulted in Grant being made a Lieutenant General the next year and placed in command of all the armies of the United States.
At the head of navigation for steamboats on the Tennessee River is Knoxville, the chief city of East Tennessee, in a fine location among the foothills of the Clinch Mountains, which are a sort of offshoot of the Cumberland range. This was the spot where General Knox, then Secretary of War, in the latter part of the eighteenth century made a treaty with the Indians of the upper Tennessee, and the village which grew there was named after him. It is the centre of the Tennessee marble district, shipping hundreds of thousands of tons of this beautiful stone all over the country. It also has coal and iron and other industries, and a population of over forty thousand. Here are the buildings of the University of Tennessee, with five hundred students, and also an Agricultural College. Knoxville was the rallying point of Union sentiment in East Tennessee during the Civil War, and its most noted citizen was Parson William G. Brownlow, a Methodist clergyman and political editor, whose caustic articles earned for him the sobriquet of the "fighting Parson." He was Governor of Tennessee and Senator after the war, and died in Knoxville in 1877. The famous Davy Crockett was also a resident of that city. Twelve miles west of Knoxville, at Low's Ferry, Admiral Farragut was born, July 5, 1801, and a marble shaft marking the place was dedicated by Admiral Dewey in May, 1900. A short distance above Knoxville the Tennessee River is formed by the union of the Holston and French Broad Rivers. Following up the Holston, we come to Morristown, and beyond to Greenville, where, in sight of the railway, are the grave and monument of President Andrew Johnson, who lived there the greater part of his life, and died there in 1875. His residence and the little wooden tailor shop where he worked are still preserved. High mountains are all about, and to the eastward from Johnson City a narrow-gauge railway ascends through the romantic canyon of Doe River, in places fifteen hundred feet deep, up the Roan Mountain to Cranberry. This line is known in the neighborhood, on account of its crookedness, as the "Cranberry Stem-Winder." On the summit of Roan Mountain is the Cloudland Hotel, at an elevation of more than sixty-three hundred feet, the highest human habitation east of the Rockies, and having a magnificent view. It is a curious circumstance that the boundary line between Tennessee and North Carolina on the mountain top runs through the hotel, and is painted a broad white band along the dining-room floor, while out of the windows are views for a hundred miles in almost every direction.
THE LAND OF THE SKY.
We have come to the famous region in Western North Carolina, the resort for health and pleasure, the "Land of the Sky," sought both in winter and summer on account of its pure, bracing atmosphere and equable climate, and where eighty thousand visitors go in a year. Between the Unaka and Great Smoky range of mountains which is the western North Carolina boundary, and the Blue Ridge to the eastward, there is a long and diversified plateau with an average elevation of two thousand feet, stretching two hundred and fifty miles from northeast to southwest, and having a width of about twenty-five miles. Various mountain spurs cross it between the ranges from one towards the other, and numerous rivers rising in the Blue Ridge flow westward over it and break through picturesque gorges in the Great Smoky Mountains to reach the Tennessee River, the most noted of these streams being the French Broad. From any commanding point along the Great Smoky range there may be seen stretching to the east and south a vast sea of ridges, peaks and domes. No single one dominates, but most all of them reach nearly the same altitude, appearing like the waves in a choppy sea, the ranges growing gradually less distinct as they are more distant. The whole region seems to be covered with a mantle of dark forest, excepting an occasional clearing or patch of lighter-colored grass. Very few rocky ledges appear, so that the slopes are smoothed and softened by the generous vegetation. The atmosphere also tends to the same result, the blue haze, so rarely absent, giving the names both to the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains. This haze softens everything and imparts the effect of great distance to peaks but a few miles away. Thus the remarkable atmospheric influence produces more impressive views than are got from greater peaks and longer distances in a clearer air elsewhere. The most elevated peak of the district, Mount Mitchell, rises four hundred and twenty-five feet higher than Mount Washington in the White Mountains. It was named for Professor Elisha Mitchell, who was an early explorer, a native of Connecticut, and Professor in the University of North Carolina, who lost his life during a storm on the mountain in 1857, and is buried at the summit. From its sides the beautiful Swannanoa River, the Indian "running water," flows eighteen miles westward to fall into the French Broad at Asheville, the centre and chief city of this charming region, whose fame has become world-wide.
"Land of forest-clad mountains, of fairy-like streams,
Of low, pleasant valleys where the bright sunlight gleams