eight delegates voted for the ordinance of secession, fifty-five against it. It was afterwards in the tempest of excitement which swept over the State-adopted by the people by a majority of ninety-four thousand. It was an act of passion and madness. Travelling through the State, I found a majority of the people professing to have been at heart Union men all the while. They could never forgive South Carolina for the evil course in which she had led them; and it was very common to hear the wish expressed, "that South Carolina and Massachusetts were kicked out into the Atlantic together." Having, however, against her better reason, seceded, Virginia became the most devoted and self-sacrificing of all the States in the cause in which she had embarked.

The railroads of the State 1 were, both financially and physically, in a bad condition. They had been used excessively during the war, and stood in need of repairs. The iron taken from the Richmond and York River Road had not been replaced. The time made by trains was necessarily slow. The

1 In 1860, there were in Virginia $66,000,000 of capital invested in 1675 miles of railroad, distributed over sixteen lines. This estimate includes 287 miles of the Baltimore and Ohio Road. In all the important roads except this, the State is a principal shareholder. The management of some of them has always been loose and uneconomical.

Governor Pierpoint wisely recommends a consolidation of certain lines:-"On the south side of James River we have the Norfolk and Petersburg, South-Side, Virginia and Tennessee, and the Richmond and Danville railroads. These roads are under the management of four different corps of officers, employed at remunerative salaries. Three of these roads form a continuous line of about four hundred miles, and all three of them afford business for the fourth. By working these roads separately a car is loaded at Norfolk with freight for Danville or Abingdon; it is brought to Petersburg to the South-Side Road, and there transferred from the Norfolk to a South-Side car; thence it is taken to Burkeville, where it is again transferred to a Danville car, -if its destination is to that town, or taken to Lynchburg and reshipped on the Vir ginia and Tennessee Road, if it goes to Abingdon. In these transactions the cars are delayed, thereby causing a much larger investment in rolling-stock to accommodate the business of these roads, in addition to the labor required to load and unload the freight, besides exposing the merchandise to loss and delaying its transportation. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, with the Northwestern Virginia and Washington branches, is nearly as long as the four roads above named, and the gross earnings of that railroad is about three times as great, the charges for passengers and freight being thirty-three per cent. less than on the Virginia roads referred to; yet the whole business of the Baltimore and Ohio road is done by one corps of officers with moderate salaries. There is the same reason for consolidating the Orange and Alexandria and Virginia Central Roads."

PROSPECTS OF VIRGINIA.

235

The rolling-stock was limited, and generally in a worse condition than the roads. But few lines were paying anything more than the expenses of running them.

The old State banks went down with the Confederacy. The circulation of the new National Banks in the State did not, in January 1866, exceed $1,300,000.

There was necessarily a great scarcity of money. It was difficult to raise funds even on the mortgage of real estate. The existence of usury laws, limiting the rate of interest at six per cent., operated to shut out Northern capital, which could find investments nearer home at more remunerative rates. When I was last in Richmond there was pending in the legislature a bill for the repeal of those laws, which, however, did not pass.

The immediate prospects of Virginia are dismal enough. But beyond this morning darkness I see the new sun rising. The great barrier, slavery, removed, all the lesser barriers to her prosperity must give way. The current of emigration, of education, of progressive ideas, is surely setting in; and in a few years we shall see this beautiful torpid body rise up, renewed with health and strength, a glory to herself and to the Union.

THE HOME OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON.

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CHAPTER XXXI.

THE "SWITZERLAND OF AMERICA."

FROM the grassy hills and vales of Southwest Virginia, I passed over by railroad into East Tennessee.

At first sight, the "Switzerland of America" is apt, I think, to disappoint one. It is a country of pleasant hills, bounded and broken into by mountains which do not remind you of the Alps. The cottages of the inhabitants lack the picturesque element. A few first-class farmers have comfortable-looking painted or brick houses; while scattered everywhere over the country are poverty-stricken, weather-blackened little framed dwellings and log-huts. Many of these are without windows; the inmates living by the daylight let in through doors, and the firelight from open chimneys. Good barns are rare. The common class of villages are without sidewalks or paved streets. In the rainy season they are wretched. They look like Northern villages that have set out to travel and got stuck in the mud. One or two are noteworthy.

Greenville, the county seat of Greene County, is chiefly interesting as being the home of the President. It stands on broken ground, and is surrounded by a fine hilly country shaded by oaken groves. The town, as I saw it one wet morning, was eminently disagreeable. The mud came up to the very doors of its old, dilapidated, unpainted wooden houses. Its more pretentious, white-painted and brick dwellings were not quite so deep in the mire. A hundred chimney smokes draped the brown irregular roofs. President Johnson's house is on Main Street; a commonplace, respectable brick dwelling. The Rebels smashed the windows for him in wartimes, but they have been replaced, and the house is now

occupied by the county sheriff. Every man knows "Andy Johnson." He has a good reputation for honesty, but I was told he was "hard on money matters." A prominent citizen who knew him intimately, said to me, "Johnson is a man of much greater ability than he has ever had credit for. When he was a tailor, he did his work well, - always a good honest job. He has many good traits, and a few bad ones. He is surly and vindictive, and a man of strong prejudices, but thoroughly a patriot."

There is in Greenville a spring which bursts out of a hillside in sufficient volume to carry a mill. The country abounds in springs, some of a curious character. In Johnson County, in the mountainous northeast corner of the State, there is a subterranean reservoir of water, out of which issue in the night-time, during the spring months, numbers of small black perch, of a blind species, which are caught in traps at the mouth of the spring.

Knoxville, (named in honor of Revolutionary General Knox,) the most considerable town of East Tennessee, is situated on abrupt hills, on the north bank of the Holston River, which is navigable by steamers to this point. Here is the junction of the East Tennessee and Virginia, and East Tennessee and Georgia railroads. The city has something more than eight thousand inhabitants. It was formerly the capital of the State. It is surrounded by fortified hills.

The place received rough treatment during the war. The Bell House, at which I stopped, was a miserable shell, carpetless and dilapidated, full of broken windows. The landlord apologized for not putting it into repair. "I don't know how long I shall stop here. Hotel-keeping a'n't my business. Nigger-dealing is my business. But that 's played out. I've bought and sold in my day over six hundred niggers," spoken with mournful satisfaction, mingled pride and regret. "Now I don't know what I shall turn my hand to. a Georgian; I came up here from Atlanta time it was burned."

I'm

At the table of the Bell House, a Southern gentleman who