Clement Anselm Evans

“ The distilling of petroleum, from cannel coal, had assumed very considerable proportions, especially along the Kanawha, when the discovery of natural petroleum, near 1860, by the boring of wells on the waters of the Little Kanawha, marked the beginning of the trade in petroleum, which has become one of the largest and most profitable in the whole world. ”

“ Eastern and Central Midland raised large crops of wheat, from which a superior quality of flour was manufactured, especially at Richmond, for the South American trade. Western Midland, then as now, added the production of large quantities of tobacco. The Piedmont country in its northeastern portion, within the limits of the growth of natural grasses, was devoted to the production of cereals and the rearing of cattle and horses, while the large plantations of the central and southwestern parts not only produced corn and wheat, but great quantities of what is known as heavy shipping tobacco. ”

“ In 1860, those in her Trans-Appalachian territory, the Ohio and its tributaries, were the avenues of a large internal commerce. Virginia early embarked in the improvement of many of her fluvial waterways by canals and slack-water navigation, especially patronizing the Chesapeake & Ohio canal, to open a highway to the West by the Potomac and the Monongahela, and the James River & Kanawha canal, for a commercial highway up the James and down the Kanawha to the Ohio farther to the south. The State as a whole is undoubtedly one of the best watered regions in the United States. ”

“ The Great Valley, or the valley of Virginia, is the elevated plateau-like country lying between the western base of the Blue ridge and the eastern one of the North mountains—Kittatinny as a whole—of the Appalachian system. Its length is over 300 miles and its average breadth about 20 miles, giving it an area of about 7,600 square miles of the most fertile and productive portion of Virginia. ”

“ While Virginia did not have in 1860 a public school system under State control, as she now has, she made ample provision for all those desiring to be educated. In nearly every neighborhood throughout the State were private schools, generally well taught, to which all had access, the State paying the tuition of all who asked such assistance. Academies and preparatory schools, most of them classical and taught by well-educated gentlemen, were found in all parts of the State. ”

“ Especially were there large numbers of highly-skilled laborers on the great tobacco plantations, who, under but light supervision, pitched, cared for, cut and cured the large crops of tobacco, for the quantity and quality of which Virginia was famous in all parts of the world. ”

“ Her negroes were mostly the descendants of imported Africans, but among them were numbers that had been sold into her borders from Northern States previous to the emancipation of slaves in those States. The condition of her people was, as a whole, as happy and contented as could be presented by any of the States of the Union. Cultivable lands were plentiful and comparatively cheap. Nearly all articles needed to supply human wants were abundant and held at reasonable prices. Labor was well paid, especially that of a skilled character. ”

“ The manufacture of salt at various localities, especially on the Great Kanawha, was one of the leading industries of that section, supplying much of the Mississippi valley with its prime necessity of human life. Coal mining was also becoming an important industry on the Kanawha, the Monongahela and along the Ohio, the product of the mines finding markets in Cincinnati, Louisville, and even New Orleans. ”

“ Each of these home communities had its own mechanics, or trades people of nearly every kind, from the carders, spinners, weavers, knitters, seamstresses and trained servants of the house-hold and its attached flower and vegetable gardens, to the shoemakers, blacksmiths, wagonmakers, and other craftsmen of the home shops, and the wagon and cart drivers, plowmen, cattle and sheep herders, and others who conducted all the different labors of the large plantations. ”

“ The Tidewater, about 11,000 square miles in area, is the great low-lying plain that extends from the Atlantic border westward from 150 to 200 miles, rising from sea level to an elevation of about 200 feet at the head of the tide, where it meets the granitic step, or "Coast ridge," at the borders of the Midland, at the first falls of the rivers, where are situated the commercial and manufacturing cities of Alexandria, Fredericksburg, Richmond and Petersburg. ”

“ The Virginia people again met in convention on the 17th of July, 1775, and chose a committee of safety to take charge of the affairs of the colony, ordered the enlistment of troops, passed laws for the raising of money, the procuring of arms and military supplies, and for the conducting of elections by loyal voters. The story of the revolution need not be repeated. ”

“ But these were the breeding places of hardy folk, who were constantly drifting westward as they grew to maturity, to form a considerable element in the great populations of newer States. Virginia, peopled with land-hungry Anglo-Saxons, made the great mistake, from the earliest days of her history, of parceling out her magnificent domain into great patents, some of them including a half million acres, and many of them from 50,000 to 100,000 acres, at the nominal price of but a few cents an acre. ”

“ The State patronized a medical college at Richmond, and from the Union theological seminary of the Presbyterians, near Hampden-Sidney college, and from the Episcopal theological seminary, near Alexandria, many able divines came to the churches throughout the same extensive regions. Female schools of a high order were established in many portions of the State, which were widely patronized from the same regions as were the colleges and the university. ”

“ Her military population, the white men of the State between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, was 196,587; a striking contrast to the 1,099,855 at that time within the limits of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, States to the west of her borders that had, by her own action, been cut from her territory, and a very large percentage of whose population was of Virginian origin; and yet her fighting population was considerably larger than that of any other Southern State except Missouri. ”

“ From its schools of law, medicine, science and literature, had been graduated a large proportion of the leading professional men not only of the Southern but of many of the Western States, even to the shores of the Pacific. ”

“ The available number of Virginia's arms-bearing population in 1860 was so decreased by the Union element and the secession from the State by West Virginia that she had not more than 150,000 fighting men to respond to her call for troops after the secession from the Union in 1861. ”

“ Crimes affecting persons and property were rare, and the churches of the leading religious denominations of the country, the Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and Episcopalians, this order representing their comparative numbers, were everywhere distributed, well attended and cared for by able and zealous preachers of the Gospel. ”