people and considerable manufacturing industry. All about is an extensive prairie land, which in times of great spring freshets is generally overflowed.

CUMBERLAND AND TENNESSEE RIVERS.

A large portion of the waters brought down by the Ohio come from its two great affluents flowing in almost alongside each other on the southern bank, just above Paducah, the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers. The Cumberland has its sources in the Cumberland Mountains, the eastern boundary of Kentucky, and flows for six hundred and fifty miles, the whole length of that State, making a wide, sweeping circuit down into Tennessee, where it passes Nashville, at the head of steamboat navigation, two hundred miles from its mouth. For twenty miles above their mouths, in their lower courses, these two great rivers are rarely more than three miles apart. The Tennessee is twelve hundred miles long from its head stream, the Holston River, rising in the mountains east of Kentucky and Tennessee. It comes through East Tennessee, makes a great bend down into Alabama, and then coming up northward flows through Tennessee and Kentucky to the Ohio. It is navigable for nearly three hundred miles to the Mussel Shoals at Florence, Alabama, where canals and locks have improved the navigation for twenty miles past the shoals, and it can also be navigated for eight hundred miles above, excepting at very low stages of water. Its name signifies "the river of the Great Bend," and it was also called in early times the "river of the Cherokees."

It was by the capture of Fort Donelson, near the mouth of the Cumberland River, that General Grant gained his early fame in the Civil War. The Confederates erected strong defensive works on the two rivers in order to prevent an invasion of Western Kentucky and Tennessee. The places selected were about forty miles south of the Ohio—Fort Henry being built on the eastern bank of the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the western bank of the Cumberland, twelve miles apart, and connected by a direct road. A combined land and naval attack was made on these forts in February, 1862, under command of General Grant and Commodore Foote. Fort Henry was easily captured by Foote's gunboats on February 6th after an hour's action, most of the garrison retreating across the neck of land to Fort Donelson. Grant then invested Fort Donelson, being reinforced until he had twenty-seven thousand men, and he attacked so vigorously that after a severe battle on the 15th he effected a lodgement in the Confederate lines and severely crippled them. Part of the garrison escaped southward during the night, and in the morning General Buckner, commanding, asked for an armistice and commissioners to arrange a capitulation. To this Grant made his noted reply, "No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted; I propose to move immediately upon your works." Having no alternative, Buckner surrendered. The Union army captured fourteen thousand prisoners, a vast amount of small arms and stores, and sixty-five cannon. Almost immediately afterwards the Confederates practically abandoned Western Kentucky and Tennessee, and Grant moved his army up the Tennessee River, and by the middle of March it was encamped to the westward and along the banks, near the southern Tennessee border, the lines extending several miles from Shiloh Church to Pittsburg Landing. The Confederates under A. S. Johnston and Beauregard were at Corinth, Mississippi, about twenty miles to the southwest. The Union plan was that General Buell, who was coming southwestward from Nashville, should join Grant, and then an advance southward be made. The Confederates, having learned of the plan, early in April decided to attack Grant before Buell could join him, and on the morning of the 6th the onslaught began, the Union army being surprised. This was the great battle of Shiloh, in which the Union forces were pushed back with heavy loss on the first day. Buell arrived, however, crossing the Tennessee that night and joining, so that next day, after a stubborn battle, Grant recovered his position, and the Confederates retreated to Corinth. In this battle the losses were about twenty-five thousand killed, wounded and missing, including three thousand Union prisoners taken.

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