The Nashville daily union. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1862-1866, 1864-04-01
From Huntsville, Alabama.

J
Though my home and most of my
helpless relatives are yet within the
lines of the enemy in upper East
Tennessee, l wish to express thanks to
thoughtful, magnanimous and en-
lghtened people in the great free States
Of the North for the timely and sub
stantial remembrance they have had of
/ the sad, solemn, fearful condition of the
many hundreds of thousands of inno-
cent, helpless, loyal hearted people
dwelling in those regions embracing the
/ vallies of twenty rivers in Southwest
/ Virginia, East Tennessee, West North
/ Carolina and North Georgia-now the
seat of war, and for the last six months
occupied by four great armies-twO
rebel, under Longstreet and Johnston,
and the others our own noble armies of
the Ohio and the Cumberland, at Knox
vile and Chattanooga, far away from
their base of supplies, and necessarily
often subsisting and foraging off the
! countryside rebel armies doubtless
subsisting almost entirely upon what
| little was heretofore left of the last
morsel raised by aged fathers and
mothers, sisters, wives and little chill
dren, to sustain life in the absence of
nearly all the able bodied men, long
either in the loyal or rebel army.
The stormy tempest of civil war,
such as the world has never known, has
now been raging for three long and
dreadful years in our land, and Ken
lucky and Middle Tennessee were the
battle-felds until about six months ago
! the dark war clouds of offended JUS
tice, tinged with golden borders and
starry blue Innings, then floated aloft
beneath the old Star Spangled Banner
of Freemen, over and beyond the lofty
and rugged Cumberland Mountains,
scattering the enemy, driving them
partially away after several great and
bloody battles; still occupy the most
important points in the vallies of TWEEN
ty rivers in East Tennessee, on to the
SUBMITS of the dark and lofty Allegha-
ny and Blue Ridge Mountains in North
Carolina and Georgia Thus the cen
trail seat of this great and dreadful war
has now long been at our very doors,
and most of that time the greater pOr-
ton of the country held by the rebels
subsisting entirely perhaps upon the
peopel there, overrun, robbed and muir
dered, already the great mobs of hun
CRY rebel cavalry and infantry, from the
beginning of the war Their loyal sons
having long since escaped their muir
derous pickets in the gaps of the noun
tains, and enlisted many hundreds
among strangers in the regiments of
Kentucky and many other loyal States,
but many thousands elected their own
officers, and organized into East Ten
nessee regiments of their own, which
have seen long and arduous service al
ready, and still they come by 5attalions
and regiments. Thus the dark picture
of famine and civil war is tinged with
the gold and starry diamonds of true
loyalty in a brave people cut off from
homes and kindred by traitors.
This Switzerland of America gar
den spot of this vast continents a
densely populated region of country,
lovely, and picturesque and romantic,
Astounding in nearly every resource OF
wealth in mineral and soil Her col
leges have educated very many of the
greatest American statesmen in the
land-of Governors, Orators, Senators,
LAWYERS, Judges, Doctors and learned
ministers, occupying high positions of
honor in many different States. Her
people, though sadly caught mapping,
and victimized before they could Or
eanize and drill for successful resist
ance, are nevertheless a brave people,
who love the old flag which their fathers
fought under in the wars of the RevO-
luton and 1928. Ny own venerable
father is one of the living veterans who
fought under it then, and would do so
again if advisable In short, their love
for the Star Spangled Banner of their
fathers is intense, even unto death.
Surrounded almost entirely by lofty
and widely desolated mountains, as in
vast prison of starvation, but few of
them can escape to more peaceful and
plentiful States, and starvation awaits
them unless relieved from abroad
matter We hear is not overlooked by the
great and good people of the North
in this hour of their distress; bless the
Lord