The gape in the Cumberland mountains.
--The correspondent of the
Auguste Sentinel, writing from
Powell's Valley in
Virginia, says:
Cumberland mountain is in sight, and the
State of Kentucky is but ten miles distant. There are a good many gape in the
Cumberland mountains.
Pound Gap is a pace sixty miles from
Abingdon due north, and before our forces had consumed all the forage, &c, in the country, it was not difficult for a traveler to find good accommodations at any point by the way. Along this road all the stock, &c, that was heretofore sent from the
State of Kentucky to the
South was driven.
It is an excellent wagon road.
From
Pound Gap to
Big Creek Gap, it is one hundred and forty miles. Between these two gaps are many others, among them
Big Stone Gap, Crank's Gap and
Cumberland, Gap. It is forty miles from Big Stone, Gap to
Pound Gap — about twenty-eight miles from Big Stone to Crank's Gap, and thirty-six to
Cumberland from Crank's Gap, and about thirty or thirty five from
Cumberland Gap to
Big Creek Gap.
Big Creek and
Cumberland Gaps lead from
Kentucky into
Tennessee; and Pound;
Big Stone and Crank's Gaps lead from
Kentucky into
Virginia.
It is seventy-nine miles from Crank's Gap to
Bristol.
This nor Big Stone Gaps are passable for wagons.
It is sixty miles from
Knoxville to
Cumberland Gap, and about forty five from
Knoxville to
Big Creek Gap.
The people on this side of the mountains are patriotic and loyal, but those in
Kentucky, just over the big hills, are the vilest sort of bushwhackers, and can well be termed semi- harhartans.--They call themselves Union men, but will murder a Yankee soldier for plunder as quick as they will a confederate.
The women, if anything, are more demoralized than the men.
