Chapter XI: Introduction: By W. P. Trent (9)

The following year a much larger army was convoyed down the river by a fleet of gunboats, and landed at Milliken’s bend, sixteen or seventeen miles above the city, on the west bank of the river. A tentative and unsuccessful effort was made by General Grant to divert the river across the peninsula by cutting a canal, so as to pass his vessels of war and transports below out of reach of the batteries on the bluffs. Meantime a furious and incessant cannonade was kept up between the gunboats and shore batteries. Finally a large part of his fleet, under cover of the darkness of night, succeeded in passing the batteries, with the loss of one vessel and serious damage to others. This movement on the water, followed by the marching of the army down the west bank, unmistakably indicated to General Pemberton, Confederate commandant, the plan and purpose of the campaign. He promptly withdrew the most of his army from the breastworks, crossed the Big Black River, and so disposed his men as to retard or arrest altogether the march of General Grant. General Pemberton’s plan was to form a junction with General Johnston, who was on his way to take part in the defence of Vicksburg. General Grant succeeded in interposing his army between Johnston and Pemberton, gave battle to Johnston at Jackson, and obliged him to fall back northward to Canton. Heavy and obstinate battles were fought at Baker’s Creek, Champion Hills and at Big Black. Pemberton, failing to unite forces with Johnston, deemed it prudent to recross the Big Black, return and re-occupy his trenches round the city. General Grant followed and closely invested the Confederate works, placing his army behind breastworks and in trenches. Two or three gallant assaults made on the Confederate works were met with determined courage and repulsed with great loss of life. The control of the river by the gunboats, above and below, made the reception of reinforcements or supplies from the west or from any source by water, impossible. The land forces spread around the fortifications cut off succor from the south and east, so that it became a mere question of time, before starvation would compel a surrender without more waste of life in hazardous and bloody assaults. When Pemberton marched to the Big Black, the supply of food in the city was low; on his return his army was placed on short rations. Constant service on the fortifications, inadequate food supply and midsummer heat developed a great deal of sickness, so that when the surrender was made on the 4th of July, after a siege of forty days, provisions were about exhausted, and one third or more of the garrison were on the sick-list, unfit for military duty. It is perhaps not out of place to say that in no campaign of the Civil War was there higher courage or greater devotion to soldierly duty displayed than here, by both participants. The events of the siege derive their true significance from the circumstance that they constituted the fatal blow which broke the Confederate power and hastened the war to its end.

The National Cemetery on the bluffs, just north of the corporate limits of the city, is, taken all in all, perhaps the most attractive patriotic cemetery in the South. The visitor to the city always seeks it first. Nature has given to it sublimity; art and landscape-engineering have imparted all the freshness and loveliness that flower and shrub and tree can give. Here rest sixteen thousand soldiers who lost their lives in the service of their country in and around Vicksburg. Such care and veneration for those who fell under the national flag while a grateful tribute to valor and heroism serve at the same time to keep ever fresh and active sentiments of martial valor and a warmer pride in all that adds glory to the country and illustrates its military prowess.

Nothing could more strongly and nobly testify to the fact that all the issues and controversies which culminated in a long and bloody war have been closed and settled and relegated to the past than the measures now in process of execution to convert the trenches and bastions around the city of Vicksburg into a park beautified by all that landscape-engineering and art can do to make the place attractive. That which appeals to-day with so much force to the sensibilities of Americans is not so much the mere transformation of the rugged hills, as that the place so wonderfully transformed is and will ever be a perpetual witness that sectional discords and strifes have disappeared from our national life, and that henceforth the great family of States and Territories, with their seventy or eighty millions of people, are members and citizens of a common country, protected by the same flag, the emblem of sovereignty to all.

KNOXVILLE

THE METROPOLIS OF EASTERN TENNESSEE

BY JOSHUA W. CALDWELL

The beginnings of Knoxville were Scotch-Irish. Its founder was James White, a Scotch-Irishman from North Carolina. Its first place of worship was a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian Church, wherein the faith of the Covenant was preached without mitigation, to the edification and uplifting of the community. The dominant element of its population until after the Civil War was Presbyterian, and it is still strong.

The first effort of the white men to possess themselves of any part of Tennessee was in 1756, when old Fort Loudon was erected about thirty miles west of where Knoxville now stands. Fort Loudon did not long resist the Cherokees. Its short story is one of the most romantic and one of the most tragic in the early history of the Southwest.

Twelve years later, the first permanent settlement in Tennessee was made upon the waters of the Watauga in the northeast corner of the State. This little community became, soon afterwards, the Watauga Association, a practically independent government, with a written constitution; indisputably the first of the kind that was formed on this continent, by men of American birth, and inspired by American sentiment. Its leaders were James Robertson, afterwards the founder of Nashville, a typical Scotch-Irish pioneer; John Sevier, afterwards the first Governor of Tennessee, a man of mixed Anglo-Saxon and Huguenot descent, and of extraordinary abilities, who became a resident of Knoxville; and John Carter, presumably descended from the noted Virginia family of that name, many of whose descendants are citizens of Knoxville.

About the year 1787, the settlements having extended gradually down the Holston, we find James White living upon the site of Knoxville and owning, then or later, much of the land now covered by the city. If traditionary statements are to be trusted, a part at least of the first house erected by James White is still standing, its original sturdy and loopholed logs protected and preserved by a sheathing of boards. The name first given the settlement was “White’s Fort.”

In 1790, North Carolina having ceded her possessions west of the Alleghanies to the United States, the “Territory of the United States South of the River Ohio” was created, and President Washington named as its Governor his friend William Blount, of North Carolina. In 1791, Governor Blount decided to make White’s Fort, which was by that time called Knoxville in honor of General Henry Knox, the capital of the territory, and the town site was surveyed in part and laid off into lots by its owner, James White, in that year.

The location is on the north bank of the Holston, four miles south of the junction of the French Broad and Holston rivers, giving to the last stream the name to which it is entitled, without regard to many temporary, ineffective and indefensible changes of river nomenclature in East Tennessee by legislation. Between two creeks, once clear and vigorous, but now defiled and depleted by many civilized uses, rises a plateau of about two hundred and fifty acres, of diversified but comparatively level surface. Where this elevation slopes to the river on the southeast, the town made its beginning, and climbed slowly up the hill until it reached the highest point overlooking the river, which was crowned with a blockhouse known as the barracks, where a scanty garrison of regulars was intended to protect the settlers and to overawe the Cherokees. The barracks boasted at least one great gun, which was fired morning and evening with punctuality and impressiveness.

The coming of Governor Blount was the beginning of the greatness of Knoxville. Blount was a notable man. He had been a silent but respected and not uninfluential member of the convention that framed the Federal Constitution. He was the friend of Washington, and his lineage was most ancient and most honorable, reaching back to the time of William the Conqueror, in whose train, and among the beneficiaries of whose bounty, was one of his ancestors. The family had been settled long, in opulent circumstances and in social and political prominence, in North Carolina. The Governor was a man of education, of fine presence, of graceful and winning manners and of unfailing, if dignified, urbanity. He was unquestionably the first gentleman as well as the chief magistrate of the “Territory of the United States South of the River Ohio,” although neither honorable lineages nor good manners were wanting there. In addition to all this his Excellency was most fortunate in his wife. The praises of the lovely and accomplished Mary Grainger Blount were in the mouths of all men, and even of many women in those days. It was a memorable occasion when the Governor brought his gracious lady from North Carolina to Knoxville, and placed her at the head of his court, which was conducted with no little circumstance and dignity.

It is said that he imported, likewise, weather-boarding, wherewith he encased the logs of a great house which he had constructed as a home for his wife, and that no sooner had this attractive and expensive transformation been accomplished, than the front yard was converted into a flower garden, the first of its kind in the town, and certainly one of the most admired anywhere.

In July, 1791, Governor Blount made at Knoxville a treaty with the Cherokees. Nearly fifteen hundred Indians were present, including forty-one chiefs. The Governor had caused to be erected in a conspicuous place on a hillside overlooking the river a large tent, wherein he remained withdrawn until all the expected company had assembled. Then the doors of the tent were thrown open and he stood forth, arrayed in splendor, and surrounded by the chief civil and military notables of the territory. The resplendency of his Excellency’s dress-sword, laced coat and cocked hat are much commented on by historians. Second in splendor of raiment and dignity of deportment to the Governor only, was James Armstrong, known as “Trooper,” formerly a dragoon in his Britannic Majesty’s service, and versed in the ways of courts. The _Annalist_ of Tennessee characterizes him, for this occasion, as “_arbiter elegantiarum_.” The Governor stood upon a platform, and one by one in due order the Cherokee chiefs were presented by Mr. Armstrong, while the assembled warriors gazed in awe upon the imposing ceremony. A treaty was solemnly entered into, and was speedily broken by both whites and Indians.

In 1794, an act of the territorial Legislature was passed, which after reciting the founding, in 1791, of a town named Knoxville in honor of Major-General Henry Knox, “said town consisting of sixty-four lots, numbered from one to sixty-four consecutively,” enacts in solemn form, that a town be established on the spot indicated, and names commissioners for its government. In 1797, fifty-nine more lots with necessary streets were added. In 1799, the town was authorized by law to elect its commissioners, but for two years the act seems to have been ineffective. The commissioners when finally elected entered promptly upon a course of vigorous municipal legislation and administration. Among other things a town sergeant was elected, and required to patrol the streets three nights a week, or oftener at his option. Slaughter-pens within the town limits, wooden chimneys, hogs upon the streets, dead or alive, and the firing of guns and pistols within the corporate limits were declared nuisances, punishable by fine, fifty cents being the highest lawful fine. Two of the offences for which this highest fine was prescribed were drunkenness and Sabbath-breaking. A few years later, presumably under pressure of popular demand, the hog ordinance was repealed, but the provision against wooden chimneys seems to have been rigorously enforced.

In 1815, the town was empowered to elect a Mayor, and Thomas Emmerson, afterwards a Judge of the Supreme Court of the State, became the first Mayor.

That the name Knoxville had been adopted before November 5, 1791, is made certain by the fact that on that day appeared the initial number of the _Knoxville Gazette_, the first newspaper published within the bounds of Tennessee. Its publisher was one George Roulstone, a native of New England, whose Yankee enterprise appeared in the fact that while the paper from the first was called the _Knoxville Gazette_, it was for some time published at Rogersville, an older town, seventy miles east of Knoxville. It is supposed that the publisher was prevented by difficulties of transportation from moving his press to Knoxville. The _Gazette_ was a three-column paper of four pages. It had not many advertisements and very little local news, but was filled with accounts of the French Revolution and of European affairs in general. It gave much space to questions of ethics, and reprinted many political and patriotic speeches.

The first and only Legislature of the Territory met at Knoxville in February, 1794. Among the acts passed was one establishing a college near Knoxville, to be called Blount College, in honor of the Governor. This it is believed was the first strictly non-sectarian institution of higher learning established in the United States. It was afterwards successively named East Tennessee College, East Tennessee University, and the University of Tennessee, under which last name it now exists and flourishes. It is unsurpassed among Southern institutions of learning for its thoroughness, and in respect of its beautiful situation is almost unequaled in the whole country.

The treaty made by Governor Blount in 1791 bound the whites to refrain from encroachments on the Indian lands, and pledged the Indians to desist from hostilities. The whites did not all act in good faith, while the Indians, with characteristic treachery, failed from the outset to regard the treaty. At first the Cherokees contented themselves with occasional outrages, but in the year 1793 it was known that the whole nation was in arms. The Indians were emboldened by the avowedly pacific policy of the Federal Government. Governor Blount had received specific instructions to act only on the defensive. Arson and murder were of daily occurrence and went unpunished. It was with genuine relief, therefore, that the whites received news, late in the summer of 1793, that the Indians had, in effect, declared war. On the night of the 24th of September, 1793, a body of more than a thousand warriors crossed the Tennessee River some twenty-five miles below Knoxville and marched in the direction of that place. Seven hundred of this invading force were Creeks and the remainder Cherokees, and, strangely enough, one hundred of the Creeks were mounted. It was the intention to reach and to attack Knoxville at daylight, but they found difficulty in crossing the river, and were further delayed by a consultation among the leaders upon an interesting question. This was whether they should kill all the people of Knoxville, or only the men. The discussion of this nice question of casuistry proved so attractive, or provoked so many differences, that daylight seems to have found it still unsettled.

At sunrise on the 25th the Indians heard the morning gun at the barracks at Knoxville and concluded that it was an alarm signal. Halting near Cavet’s blockhouse, eight miles from the village, they entertained themselves by decoying and butchering the inmates. Their coming had been made known on the 24th to the people of Knoxville, who prepared with courage and energy to resist them. The total fighting strength of the whites was forty men. It was determined to waylay the Indians, and after firing upon them to retreat to the barracks. Accordingly, leaving two old men with the women and children, the remaining thirty-eight spent the night concealed on a wooded ridge west of the town, fearlessly awaiting a foe outnumbering them more than twenty to one. Early on the morning of the 25th, however, a messenger brought the news that the Indians had lost heart after the affair at Cavet’s and were in full retreat.

In this little band of defenders was the Rev. Samuel Carrick, a Presbyterian minister, afterwards the first President of Blount College, of whose conduct on this occasion there is a pleasing and honorable tradition. It is said that when news of the invasion came he was preparing to bury his wife, who had just died, but, putting aside his grief, and leaving her beloved remains to be buried by the women of the neighborhood, he seized his rifle and hastened to take his post at the front.

A month later the Tennessee militia, led by Sevier, were in the heart of the Indian country, and the battle of Etowah, on the 17th of October, 1793, ended the campaign and cowed the savages.

From this time until the Civil War, Knoxville was outside the current of important public events. From 1792 to 1796, it was the capital of the “Territory South of the River Ohio”; from 1796 to 1811, except for a little while in 1807, it was the capital of Tennessee. About this time the capital of the State became peripatetic, on account of the westward trend of population. As late as 1834, we find a member of the Constitutional Convention of that year introducing a resolution for the ascertainment of the “centre of gravity” of the State, with a view to the permanent location of the capital upon it. It will be interesting to know that the official to whom the question was referred reported the centre of gravity to be identical with the geographical centre. The capital was finally fixed at Nashville, which is not on the centre of gravity, but is otherwise fully entitled to the honor. Meanwhile, in 1817, the capital returned for a brief stay at Knoxville, and then finally departed westward.

The Constitutional Convention of 1796 met at Knoxville in January of that year with William Blount as President, and promulgated the first Constitution of Tennessee. John Sevier was the first Governor and took up his abode at Knoxville. He began to build a large brick house, but hospitality and every form of liberality exhausted his means and he removed to the country before the first story of the house had been constructed. The house was completed by another owner and was designed to overlook the town from a distance. It now stands with its back and one side to intersecting modern streets, and its front to the side yard. Sevier was for eleven years Governor, and then was elected to Congress. He died in 1815 while on a journey to the Creek nation as Commissioner of the United States. His remains reposed in Alabama until 1889, when they were disinterred, brought to Knoxville, and deposited in the Court-House yard, where their final resting-place is marked by a graceful shaft of native white marble. Sevier, always the popular hero of Tennessee, is the most brilliant figure in the pioneer history of the Southwest.

Blount was one of the first Senators from Tennessee. His impeachment as Senator upon charges which to this day no man fully understands and which to the Western people seem to have imported no turpitude, did not affect his standing in Tennessee. He is buried in Knoxville in the old First Presbyterian churchyard.

Within a few feet of his grave is the tomb of Hugh Lawson White, son of James White, “the founder,” and known as the “American Cato.” He was a Judge of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, many years a member of the United States Senate, and for a time its President. He was long the intimate friend of Andrew Jackson, but was alienated by Jackson’s imperious methods, and became a candidate for the Presidency of the United States against Jackson’s political heir, Martin Van Buren. He was defeated, but carried his own and two other Southern States. He was one of the strongest, purest and most patriotic of American statesmen, and was a conspicuous figure in the Senate even in the days of Webster, Calhoun, Clay and Benton. For fifteen years (from 1812 to 1827) he was President of the Bank of Tennessee, located at Knoxville, which was almost the only bank in the South that weathered the financial storms which followed the War of 1812.

On the western limit of the town stands an old weather-boarded log house, wherein tradition declares that George Farragut, the father of the Admiral, once lived. The county records show that George Farragut owned the ground on which the house is situated. The great Admiral certainly was born in Knox county at Low’s Ferry near Campbell’s Station, where, on the 15th of May, 1900, Admiral Dewey unveiled a monument, which was erected by the Daughters of the American Revolution to his illustrious predecessor. Old deeds to George Farragut sometimes call him “Fairregret,” but he signs himself Farragut.

Sam Houston was reared near Knoxville, and there are many stories of his handsome presence, winning manners, great abilities and abounding debts.

Full of interest to strangers is a frame dwelling in East Knoxville, standing flush with the sidewalk, and entered by high steps that encroach upon the pavement. This was the home of William G. Brownlow, known as the “Fighting Parson,” one of the most remarkable men in the history of Tennessee. He was a Methodist minister, an editor with a gift of invective that has never been surpassed, an ardent and fearless Unionist, the Reconstruction Governor of Tennessee, and finally United States Senator. Brownlow was a man of the Andrew Jackson type. The Southwest, and especially Tennessee, gave to public life in the first half of this century a class of men with distinctive physical, intellectual and moral qualities. Physically, they were tall, angular, rawboned; intellectually they were alert, positive and often narrow; they were honest and sincerely patriotic, but vindictive and unrelenting, the truest of friends, the most aggressive and dangerous of foes. Jackson, Brownlow and Isham G. Harris were men of this kind; Harris seemingly the last of them.

In theological and political controversy, in both of which he delighted, Brownlow neither sought nor gave quarter, and his fame as a polemic went through the Southwest long before the Civil War. Soon after Tennessee seceded he was imprisoned, and then released and sent North, where he made many characteristic speeches, and wrote a book into which he gathered all the bitterness of his hatred of secession and of the secessionists. When the Federal authority was re-established in Tennessee, it was supported, and its local policy mainly directed, by the loyalists of East Tennessee, among whom Brownlow was most prominent in State affairs, and in national affairs Horace Maynard and Andrew Johnson. The intensity and resolution of Brownlow’s nature were such that he sometimes followed the logic of his hatred of secession to extreme ends, so that by the Southern element in the State he was hated as the Irish Catholics hated Cromwell. But his conduct, after all, was in keeping with the spirit of the times, and not a little of the censure that fell upon him was unjust. In private affairs, while always forcible and positive, he was a kindly, just and generous man, of pure life and of correct principles.

Horace Maynard, a native of Massachusetts and a graduate of Amherst, came to Knoxville in 1837 and became Professor of Mathematics in the University. Later, he was for twelve years a member of Congress, then Attorney-General of the State, Minister to Turkey and Postmaster-General. His eminent abilities and his pure character entitle him to special mention and to the highest commendation. His son, Commander Washburn Maynard, distinguished himself in the late Spanish War.

Another noteworthy citizen of Knoxville was Thomas A. R. Nelson, whose speech in Congress against secession was praised by the London _Times_ in the highest terms. Mr. Nelson was of the counsel for Andrew Johnson in the impeachment trial, and was afterwards a Judge of the Supreme Court of the State. He was one of the best lawyers and one of the most eloquent and accomplished public speakers the State has produced.

When the Civil War broke out, East Tennessee, not being a slaveholding section, and being the Whig stronghold, was overwhelmingly for the Union. The Union leaders were Johnson, Maynard, Brownlow and many others of almost equal ability. Knoxville was the capital of East Tennessee. It had grown principally by the increase of the original population, and the kinships of its people, especially of the more prominent families, were exceptionally extensive and intricate. A majority of these well-to-do people went with the South, but a large minority was loyal, and the common people, as a rule, held to the Union.

The first encounter of hostile forces at Knoxville was on the 20th of June, 1863, when Colonel Saunders with a force of fifteen hundred Federal soldiers on a raid through East Tennessee, halted in front of the town. A brief artillery duel ensued, in the course of which Captain Pleasant McClung of Knoxville, a conspicuously gallant Confederate officer, was killed. After an hour’s firing Saunders resumed his march without entering Knoxville.

Toward the end of August, 1863, the Confederates evacuated the city, never to re-enter it, and on the 2d of September, General Burnside entered and occupied it. The next event of importance was the siege. It will be remembered that after his retreat from Gettysburg, General Lee detached Longstreet’s corps from his army and sent it south to aid General Bragg. Longstreet remained with Bragg until November 4th, when he set out to rejoin Lee, marching overland through East Tennessee and western Virginia. This movement was a serious menace to General Burnside, who had at Knoxville and in its vicinity about twelve thousand men to oppose to Longstreet’s twenty thousand. Longstreet’s approach to Knoxville, however, was so deliberate as to allow Burnside time to concentrate his forces and to fortify himself hastily but effectively. On the 20th of November, the town was invested, but not thoroughly. The Confederate General was not aware apparently that the Holston and French Broad rivers came together four miles above Knoxville, and contented himself with blockading the Holston above the junction, leaving open the French Broad, by means of which supplies were constantly conveyed to the besieged.

On the 29th of November, at daylight, the Confederates assaulted Fort Saunders, on the west of the town, an almost impregnable point in its outer defences. The attacking force consisted of three brigades of McLaw’s division. The attack was delivered upon the northwest angle of the fort, probably its strongest point. It was necessary for the storming party, after climbing a high hill, to pass a difficult abattis, and to make its way through a labyrinth of telegraph wires stretched between the stumps of the original forest trees which had been felled. Having overcome these obstacles, a deep ditch was reached, beyond which rose the parapet of the fort to the height of more than twenty feet. When the broken, disordered and bleeding mass of Confederates reached the verge of the ditch there was no hesitation. In the face of a deadly musket fire and of a continuous discharge of hand grenades, they hurled themselves into the ditch and scrambled upon hands and knees up the steep and slippery embankment. Three times they succeeded in planting their battle-flags upon the parapet, and once they entered the fort, but only to be killed or captured after a desperate struggle. The assault failed. Three hundred Confederates were captured, and from five to seven hundred dead and wounded lay before the abattis, among the broken wires and in the ditch.

This attack upon Fort Saunders was one of the most gallant and desperate encounters of the whole war, and if it had occurred upon a more conspicuous field would have been ranked with Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg.

General Longstreet now concluded to molest Burnside no more, and leisurely retired to Virginia. Grant sent twenty thousand men to reinforce Burnside, but Longstreet had already withdrawn.

Immediately after the war Knoxville began to increase rapidly in population. The loyalty of East Tennessee won much favor for it at the North, and many desirable additions to the population of Knoxville came from that section.

It is probable that no city in the South contains so large a proportion of citizens of Northern and Western birth. Of foreign-born citizens there are comparatively few, the tides of immigration having flowed always north of Mason and Dixon’s line. Knoxville is therefore a thoroughly American city, of forty thousand population, free from sectional sentiment, progressive, but withal conservative, and proud of its deserved reputation as a center of education and of culture.

Its free schools, handsomely and commodiously housed, are most liberally supported, while the State University is the pride of the intelligent people of Tennessee. The State Deaf and Dumb School and a branch of the Asylum for the Insane are located there, and Knoxville College for the education of negroes is one of the best of its kind.

Knoxville contributed a handsome building to the “White City” of the Nashville Centennial, and afterwards the women of the city secured the removal of the building to Knoxville, where, at a point of vantage, it was re-erected and dedicated to the cause of woman’s advancement and to all the Muses.

Knoxville is an old town as things go in America, yet much of it is new. Its population has increased tenfold within thirty-five years. It is therefore, in the main, modern in construction. In proportion to population it has by far the largest wholesale trade among the Southern cities. It enjoys a high degree of prosperity. It is the industrial, commercial and educational center of East Tennessee, and its future is full of promise.

NASHVILLE

“THE ADVANCE-GUARD OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION.”

BY GATES P. THRUSTON

The beautiful site upon which the city of Nashville stands must have been famous in prehistoric times. Its natural salt spring near the bank of the Cumberland River was a noted resort of the Indian and buffalo. Some years ago, the huge bones of a mastodon were exhumed from the alluvial deposit upon its margin. Near the flowing spring was an ancient cemetery of the long-vanished Stone Grave race, the mound builders, of Tennessee, and upon the opposite bank of the river and in the adjacent valleys have been found not less than ten thousand rude stone cists containing their mortuary remains. These interesting memorials have yielded a vast store of archæological treasures, illustrating their arts and industries and telling a pathetic story of aboriginal life in the valley of the Cumberland.

A race of Village Indians, probably akin to the Pueblo Builders or Village Indians of New Mexico and Arizona, once made their home in Middle Tennessee and the adjacent territory. These industrious pottery makers and mound builders must have dwelt for several centuries in this lovely Garden of Eden.

In an evil hour, unhappily, some destroyer came, perhaps the ancestors of the savage and vindictive Mohawk or Iroquois Indians of the north, and devastated their towns and homes and scattered or exterminated the humble and less warlike Villagers. The first white hunters and pioneers discovered in the shadowy forest only their strange and mysterious mounds, and the ancient lines of earthworks that had formed their forts.

For perhaps a hundred years or more before the advent of the white man, the beautiful valley of the Cumberland seems to have been a wilderness uninhabited save by the wild animals of the forest.

As early as 1714, M. Charleville, a French trader, came, and tarried for a time near the salt spring, known thereafter as the French Lick. In 1775, Timothy De Monbreun, a native of France, visited the spring, and later settled near the site of Nashville. Occasionally adventurous hunters and trappers passed down the valley. In 1778, a man of singular courage and gigantic stature named Spencer came with a party from Kentucky in search of homes and fortune, and settled near Bledsoe’s Lick, north of the Cumberland. They planted a small field of corn. Spencer’s companions soon became discouraged and returned to Kentucky, but this self-reliant hunter, undismayed by the solitude of the wilderness and the fear of the crafty Cherokee, refused to leave his new home in the lonely forest, and passed the long winter there, with only a great hollow sycamore tree as a shelter.

The story of the founding of Nashville is full of heroic incidents. It reads like a romance. About ten years had elapsed since the stout-hearted pioneers of Virginia and the Carolinas had pushed their way westward through the blue ridges of the Alleghanies, and planted an independent colony upon the banks of the Watauga River. Its master spirits, John Sevier, James Robertson and Isaac and Evan Shelby would have been men of mark in any community.

From this parent hive, already grown into a strong and prosperous settlement, a new colony of two hundred and more hardy riflemen and pioneers, in the fall of 1779, set out upon a far journey to the west, under the leadership of James Robertson.

Allured by the wonderful stories of the beauty and fertility of the Cumberland Valley, they determined to seek there new homes. It was an heroic venture, unsurpassed in the history of the march of western civilization. No military force blazed a way for them. High mountain ranges, deep and unknown rivers, hundreds of miles of dense forest, lay before them. The dread of the crafty savage, upon whose hunting-grounds they were encroaching, did not deter them.

Bidding farewell to their friends at Watauga they struck out upon the wilderness trail of Daniel Boone for the Far West. They passed through the gap in the Cumberland Mountains, across the headwaters of the Cumberland River, and still westward across the rivers and valleys of Central and Southern Kentucky, until, after weary weeks of marching, through storm and snow and ice, they finally reached the old French Lick on Christmas Day, 1779.

The wives and families of this advance-guard of the frontier, unable to endure the hardships of the march, were sent in boats and canoes down the Holston and Tennessee rivers. Captain John Donelson was in command, a man of rare courage and judgment. His handsome young daughter, Rachel, one of the voyagers, afterwards became mistress of the White House as the wife of President Jackson.

They left Fort Patrick Henry on the Holston River, December 27, 1779. The distance by water around the long, winding circuit of the Holston, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Cumberland up to the Cumberland Bluffs was more than a thousand miles. Captain Donelson’s interesting journal, kept during the four-months’ journey and still preserved among the treasures of the Tennessee Historical Society, recounts in plain and modest words a story of heroism, of thrilling adventures, of singular pathos, scarcely equaled in the annals of our American frontier. It was a midwinter journey. The voyagers were attacked by the savage Chickamauga Indians. Their frail boats were swept through unknown rapids and floods. They had to force their way up the Ohio and Cumberland rivers. Many of the party perished, some were shot down by the Indians, others were wounded and ill; but with thankful hearts the survivors finally reached their anxious friends at the “Big Salt Lick” on the Cumberland, April 24, 1780. It was a joyful meeting, a reunion of happy families, long remembered in the settlement.

The commanding bluff on the south side of the river seemed an ideal home for the new colony, united, hopeful and enthusiastic. The rich valley and the winding river added beauty to the landscape. Ranges of noble and picturesque hills, not far distant, surrounded the site. The land was fertile. Springs of pure water abounded, and here in the far western wilderness was planted the new germ of civilization, which in after years was to grow and blossom into rich fruition. In honor of General Nash, of North Carolina, a distinguished officer of the Revolution, the village was christened Nashborough.

And now the cheery sound of the woodman’s axe rang out in the forest. Cabins were built. The land was cleared and crops were planted. Log forts were erected, planned after the good model of the fort at Watauga that had saved the precious lives of the little parent colony from the assaults of the Cherokees.

A regiment of riflemen was formed, with James Robertson as Colonel and John Donelson as Lieutenant-Colonel. An independent civil government was organized and established. This isolated little settlement was rightly called by James Robertson “The advance-guard of western civilization.” It was six or seven hundred miles from the nearest established government. It was over three hundred miles from the Watauga, and nearly as far from the Kentucky settlements, yet law, order and justice prevailed.

The carefully drawn articles of the compact under which the local civil government was organized, indicate the high character of its citizens. They bore the impress of the true Anglo-Saxon spirit,--the love of order and equity. They required strict obedience to the will of the majority. Invoking the blessing of Divine Providence, the compact set up in the wilderness a temple of justice that secured ample legal protection to the citizen and the stranger, until the lawful jurisdiction of the parent State of North Carolina could be extended over the new territory.

James Robertson, the well-recognized leader of the settlement, was not blessed with the genius and natural gifts of John Sevier, the soldier and statesman of the eastern section, but he was a born ruler and organizer, a man full of resources, of lofty personal character and purposes. Well might he be called the founder and father of Nashville. His life is an epitome of the early history of Middle Tennessee.

Dr. Ramsey, the historian of Tennessee, tells us that when the treaty was made with the Indians at Watauga, giving the whites the right to possess the rich hunting-grounds of Middle Tennessee and Kentucky, the aged Indian chief Oconostota took Daniel Boone by the hand, and remarked with significant earnestness: “Brother, we have given you a fine land, but I believe you will have much trouble in settling it.” How prophetic were these words! The brave little colony upon the bluffs at Nashborough, with settlements stretching for many miles along the valley of the Cumberland, was destined to pass through years of peril and anxiety. The young warriors of the Cherokees and Creeks were not willing to confirm the surrender of their favorite hunting-grounds to the insatiate and land-hungry paleface. Their footprints were soon discovered in the forest. The settlers were ambushed near their homes, and were shot down by unseen foes as they drank at the springs. Horses and cattle were stampeded and stolen. The strongest forts were attacked. At times the dangers and discouragements were so great that it seemed as if this vanguard settlement, with all its hopes and promises, must be abandoned. A number of the settlers yielded to their fears, and returned with their families to Kentucky or to their old homes in the East. In those dark days the exalted character of James Robertson stood out in noble relief. He resolutely stemmed the tide of apprehension. He would not discuss a retreat. He was the very life and mainstay of the settlement. “These rich and beautiful lands,” Robertson said, “were not designed to be given up to savages and wild beasts. The God of Creation and Providence has nobler purposes in view.” “Each one should do what seems to him his duty. As for myself, my station is here, and here I shall stay if every man of you deserts.”

Solitary and alone, and apparently unmindful of danger, Robertson made long journeys through the forest to confer with the Cherokee chiefs in the interest of peace. When the ammunition at the forts was exhausted, and an attack was threatened, he set out in midwinter upon a lonely trail through the wilderness for the Kentucky settlements, and never rested until he had returned to Freeland Station with an ample supply.

His return was none too soon. That very night, at the dead hour of midnight, a band of savage Chickasaws attacked Freeland Station. The moon was shining brightly, but they crept up noiselessly through the shadows to the very gates of the fort. They finally unlocked its bars and were pushing through the opening, when the quick ear of Robertson, who was sleeping near by, caught the sound of danger. He shouted a cry of alarm. A shot from his rifle rang out on the still night air. His comrades within the fort grasped their guns and fired from every cabin door. It was a sharp contest, but the Indians were finally routed and driven from the fort.

In the early spring they attacked the station at Nashborough in almost overwhelming numbers. They forced their way nearly to the gates of the old fort, located near the present corner of Market and Church streets, intercepting the retreat of many of the settlers. There was a desperate struggle for possession of the fort. At an opportune moment, the pack of powerful watch-dogs and hounds in the fort was turned loose, attacked the Indians fiercely, and greatly aided in repelling the onslaught. Both sides lost heavily, but the fort and settlement were saved.

For long and anxious years the settlements upon the Cumberland River were in constant warfare and danger. There was no period of peace or repose, yet year by year the restless march of the western pioneers and “movers” continued. The colony grew in strength and numbers, and at the end of the first decade of its history, several thousand thrifty and prosperous settlers occupied the fertile territory along the valley.

The village of Nashborough had become the ambitious town of Nashville. North Carolina had taken the settlements under her motherly protection. A court-house and prison had been erected. Davidson Academy, that later grew into Nashville University, had been chartered and endowed. In 1788, Andrew Jackson, a young lawyer unknown to fame, came to the town bearing a commission from the Governor of North Carolina as attorney of the Mero District. Colonel James Robertson was appointed a Brigadier-General. Tennessee was organized into a State and admitted into the Union in 1796.

From its infancy as a village, Nashville has been something of a historic center. It has been the home of a number of men of national reputation. Under the leadership of Generals Jackson and Coffee, the gallant Tennessee troops who helped to win the famous victory at New Orleans assembled at Nashville.

One of the happy events in the early life of the city, still treasured in our local histories, was the visit of General Lafayette in 1825. He was received and entertained with joyful demonstrations of affection, and it is said that he long remembered and often recalled with pleasure the cordiality of his reception.

Nashville has been the arena of many hotly contested political battles. The eloquence of Sargeant Prentiss, of Henry Clay, of Meredith P. Gentry, of Haskell and the old-time orators is still remembered. The city was the home of Felix Grundy, of Thomas H. Benton, later the famous Missouri Senator, of General Sam Houston, the hero of San Jacinto, and of John Bell. The historic and hospitable mansion of President Andrew Jackson at the Hermitage, a few miles east of Nashville, in those early days, as now was the Mecca of many pilgrimages. Visitors are always charmed with the beauty of the surrounding country. A picturesque avenue lined with overshadowing cedars leads to the house. Its stately pillars and broad porch remind us of an old Virginia homestead.

Here the hero and his beloved wife, Rachel Donelson, lived many happy years, and entertained their friends and neighbors with generous hospitality. Here Aaron Burr was a welcome visitor, before he was suspected of treasonable purposes, and Lafayette, James Monroe and Martin Van Buren were honored guests. In a field adjoining the mansion, two hundred or more friends and neighbors were entertained at a dinner given in honor of the election of James K. Polk as President.

Like the home of Washington at Mt. Vernon, the residence at the Hermitage was a veritable museum of souvenirs, arranged and treasured by Mrs. Jackson and her adopted daughter. The walls were adorned with family and historic portraits, the work of noted artists.

Near by, in a corner of the garden of the Hermitage, the remains of President Jackson and his dear wife lie side by side, under a modest but beautiful marble tomb, prepared by him for their reception. In his later years the old General rarely exhibited the sterner side of his nature. He was mild and courtly in manner. His kindness was proverbial among his neighbors. He became deeply interested in religion. To please his devoted wife, he had a modest chapel erected near their home, and they were faithful attendants at all religious meetings held there.

By an act of the Legislature of Tennessee, the Ladies’ Hermitage Association, a society of patriotic ladies of Nashville, has charge of the Hermitage, its mansion and surroundings, and through their untiring devotion the historic old home and its many treasures are well preserved and cared for.

The residence of President James K. Polk still stands upon an elevated site in the center of the city of Nashville. It was a stately dwelling in its day, worthy to be the home of a President. His remains were deposited in a tomb of noble proportions erected in front of the mansion, but some years ago, by an act of the Legislature, they were removed to the grounds of the State Capitol.

The revered widow of President Polk survived him many years, and the old home and her gracious welcome added a charm to the social life of the city and attracted visitors from near and far.

It was not until the year 1843 that Nashville became the seat of government of the State of Tennessee. The city presented to the State the splendid grounds upon which its beautiful capitol building stands. The famed Acropolis at Athens did not afford a nobler site for its temples. The traveler can see it from afar, and from the broad porticos of the State House one can survey the winding Cumberland and the varied beauties of the surrounding hills.

Nashville continued to grow in importance and prosperity year by year, until the shadows of the great conflict between the States clouded its happy life. The hearts of the people were mainly in sympathy with the Southern cause. True to the history of the Volunteer State, its young men enlisted in the army, and its devoted women nursed the wounded in the hospitals.

Unhappily, Fort Donelson soon fell; the Federal gunboats steamed up the river; General Buell and his troops appeared on the north bank of the Cumberland, and in February, 1862, the proud city was forced to surrender to the Union army.

Nashville became a vast military camp. Federal brigades and divisions marched through its streets and camped in the beautiful woodland parks about the city. A cordon of elaborate forts and earthworks was built along the chain of suburban hills to the south and west. An imposing fortress soon encircled the stately Capitol building, in the very heart of the city, and towered threateningly above the homes of its people. Its battlements and sharp angles, the very porticos of the Capitol, bristled with cannon. It became the central citadel of Federal defence. The fierce cannonade that announced the bloody battle at Murfreesboro, thirty miles away, could almost be heard by the anxious mothers and friends within the walls at Nashville.

General N. B. Forrest, with his cavalry force, came and threatened the city for a time, but made no serious attack. Later, General Hood marched up from the south with a splendid army, reviving the hopes of the Confederates in Nashville; but the fatal disaster at Franklin, and the overwhelming defeat of the Confederates by General Thomas on the hills south of the city, shattered all hope, and left the Union forces in possession of the coveted prize until the close of the war.

Ah! those were days that tore the heart-strings. East Tennessee had cast its affections and strength with the North, and remained loyal to the Union. Each section of the State had followed its convictions as to the right, and Tennessee may well be proud of her sons who fought on either side. Nashville was the home of gallant Frank Cheatham, of General William H. Jackson, General William B. Bate, General Rains, General Maney and a host of other Confederates who won honor and distinction in the Southern cause. Buell, Rosecrans, Thomas, Sherman, Grant, distinguished generals on the Federal side, had all held command there.

Happily, peace came at last, and the long-beleaguered city breathed more freely. The remains of the Confederates who fell in the battles about Nashville were lovingly gathered into the beautiful grounds of the “Confederate Circle” at Mt. Olivet. The Federals sleep peacefully in the National Cemetery not far away, under the kindly care of the government.

Soon the wheels of industry began to revolve. New life and prosperity came. The heart of Cornelius Vanderbilt was warmed toward the desolated South, and a noble institution of learning was endowed in his name. The Trustees of George Peabody came to the rescue also, and founded the Peabody Normal College. The Jubilee Singers of Nashville sang Fisk University into life, and endowed a useful institution dedicated to the education of the colored race recently freed from slavery.

A new Nashville has adjusted itself to the changed order of things in the South, and is assuming the appearance and proportions of a metropolis. Its borders have extended to the picturesque hills that circle the city. Its fame as an educational center perhaps more than rivals its importance in commerce and manufactures. More than five thousand students from other sections of the country are included in its scholastic population, and within the city limits there are not less than eighty schools and colleges--schools of theology, law, medicine, pharmacy, music and art. They are the glory of Nashville.

The throng of teachers and students help to give it the charm of a literary and intellectual atmosphere. Right justly may it be called the “Athens of the South.” Vanderbilt University and Peabody Normal College, with their beautiful parks and clusters of fine buildings, are institutions of which any city might be proud.

In 1880, Nashville celebrated its Centennial in honor of the founding of the city. It was an inspiring occasion, but the Centennial of the State of Tennessee, celebrated at the capital in 1896-’97, crowned the city with laurels that will long be remembered with honorable pride. It was a revelation,--a noble memorial of a century of statehood. The dream of James Robertson, the father and founder of Nashville, was more than realized. In a little more than a century of progress, the camp of the brave little colony on the bank of the Cumberland had grown into a splendid Southern city.

LOUISVILLE

THE GATEWAY CITY TO THE SOUTH

BY LUCIEN V. RULE

Beautiful of situation is Louisville, the metropolis of Kentucky, and the Gateway City to the South. Builded along the Ohio at the Falls, the river stretches away to the northeast in a sheet of water nearly a mile wide and six miles in extent with a scarcely perceptible current, making one of the finest harbors in the whole course of this “Rhine of America.” Circling hills surround the city, and the parks upon them are unsurpassed in this section of the country. The avenues are broad and well shaded, and while the residences are, as a rule, handsomely modern, many splendid specimens of Colonial architecture are to be seen. The homesteads in the suburbs are delightful, dreamy retreats, and the river valley is as fertile as that of the Jordan.