CHAPTER I. VIRGINIA IN 1860-HER SEVEN GRAND DIVISIONS-GEOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS, CLIMATE AND AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS-HER POPULATION-POLITICAL AND HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE. VIROG VIRGINIA was, in 1860, in nearly all the particulars of area, resources, productions and population, one of the leading States of the Union, just as she had been from colonial and revolutionary times. Her influence in the councils of the nation was very great, if not even paramount, and she was looked up to, not only as "the mother of States and of statesmen," but as the ardent defender of the Union, in the formation of which she had taken the leading part. One-sixteenth of the native population of the United States, in 1860, claimed her soil as their birthplace; and it was said that a majority of the members of Congress, at that time, were either natives of Virginia, or the sons or grandsons of those who had been born within her borders. The geographical position and general relations of Virginia gave her a commanding position. Classed as one of the Middle Atlantic States, situated midway between Maine on the northeast and Florida on the southeast, she was, in reality, the representative mid-coast State of the Union; having, in consequence of her position and variety of land relief, many of the characteristics of the States lying both to the north and south of her. Because of her great extension, of over 500 miles, from the Atlantic across the Atlantic highlands to the Ohio, she had many of the features and adaptations of the States lying to the west as well as of those on the northwest and southwest. She was also the eastern one of the central belt of States, as the latitude of the entrance to Chesapeake bay very nearly corresponds to that of the Golden Gate of California. In extent of surface Virginia was one of the greatest of the States east of the Mississippi river, her area then being about 68,000 square miles, while New York had 47,000, all of New England 68,348, and Georgia but 59,000. Her greatest breadth from the North Carolina line to the northern end of the "panhandle," within 90 miles of Lake Erie, was about 430 miles; her greatest length, from east to west along the North Carolina and Tennessee lines, from the Atlantic to Cumberland gap, was 440 miles. Her outline was varied and richly developed. On the east the Virginian sea of the Atlantic and Chesapeake bay-with its many tidal rivers and estuaries, some penetrating her territory fully 150 miles, dividing it into numerous large and small peninsulas and furnishing more than 1,500 miles of tide-washed shore line, with numerous harbors of unsurpassed capacity and depthpermeate over 11,000 square miles of her tidewater country. The navigable Ohio belonged to her all along her northwestern border, receiving numerous navigable tributaries that drained the larger part of her TransAppalachian territory. The relief characteristics of the State were noteworthy and remarkable. These divided it into seven natural grand divisions, each differing from the other in soil, adaptation to production, climate and other characteristics, and each equal in area to some of the States of the Union: 1. 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. Many of the most important battles of the war of 1861-65 in Virginia were fought along this "Coast ridge," generally a sharply-defined line of escarpment. 2. The Midland is the undulating higher plain of the Atlantic slope, somewhat triangular in form, that extends from the eastern rim of the "ridge" westward to the broken range of hills and low mountains called the coast range of the Atlantic. Its area is about 12,500 square miles. It is intersected by many eastwardly flowing rivers; its surface is rolling or uneven, and deeply carved into stream valleys with intervening watershed ridges. It rises from an altitude of from 150 to 200 feet on the east to one of from 300 to 500 on the west. 3. The Piedmont is the greatly diversified region. lying between the eastern foot of the Coast range mountains and the eastern foot of the Blue ridge. Its area is nearly 7,000 square miles; in altitude it rises from an average of nearly 400 feet along its Midland border to one of nearly 1,000 feet along its Blue ridge border, while its included mountain ranges and Blue ridge spurs vary in altitude from 1,000 to 4,000 feet. It is a genuine piedmont, or foot-of-mountain country, that extends for a distance of over 300 miles along the eastern side of the Blue ridge from the Potomac to the North Carolina line, with an average breadth of nearly 25 miles. Its greatly varying forms of relief make it one of the most attractive and picturesque portions of the State. 4. The Blue ridge is a many-branched mountain chain, with swelling domes and considerable plateaus, extending for some 300 miles entirely across the State, from the northeast to the southwest, varying in elevation from about 1,000 feet near the Potomac to over 4,000 feet in the plateau in the southwest, on which are the three Blue ridge counties of the State. This is not only a striking feature in the landscape, from both its eastern and its western sides, but is one of the most important military features of the State. It played an important part in the many engagements of the Confederate war that took place in or near the passes that cut or cross it. Its area, as a grand division, is about 2,000 square miles. 5. 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. It is her part of the great limestone valley that extends, for 1,500 miles, from near the mouth of the St. Lawrence far into Alabama. It is composed of a series of river basins, those of the Shenandoah and parts of those of the James, the Roanoke, the New river and the headwaters of the Tennessee. Its altitude varies from 500 to 2,600 feet. Its surface is diversified by hills and |