the Xualans had been swept away by the conquering
Cherokees, and he witnessed there the most sanguinary contest between
Indians of which our annals give any account--a pitched battle two days
in duration, between the invading Shawnees, who lorded it over what is
now Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana--and the Cherokees, who dominated the
country the southeast of the Cumberland range. Again the Cherokees were
victorious, and the discomfited Shawnees retired north of the Gap.

Then the white man delivered battle for the possession the land, and
bought it with the lives of many gallant adventurers. Half a century
later Boone and his hardy companion followed, and forced their way into
Kentucky.

Another half century saw the Gap the favorite haunt of the greatest of
American bandits--the noted John A. Murrell--and his gang. They
infested the country for years, now waylaying the trader or drover
threading his toilsome way over the lone mountains, now descending upon
some little town, to plunder its stores and houses.

At length Murrell and his band were driven out, and sought a new field of
operations on the Lower Mississippi. They left germs behind them,
however, that developed into horse thieve counterfeiters, and later into
guerrillas and bushwhackers.

When the Rebellion broke out the region at once became the theater of
military operations. Twice Cumberland Gap was seized by the Rebels, and
twice was it wrested away from them. In 1861 it was the point whence
Zollicoffer launched out with his legions to "liberate Kentucky," and it
was whither they fled, beaten and shattered, after the disasters of Wild
Cat and Mill Springs. In 1862 Kirby Smith led his army through the Gap
on his way to overrun Kentucky and invade the North. Three months later
his beaten forces sought refuge from their pursuers behind its
impregnable fortifications. Another year saw Burnside burst through the
Gap with a conquering force and redeem loyal East Tennessee from its
Rebel oppressors.

Had the South ever been able to separate from the North the boundary
would have been established along this line.

Between the main ridge upon which Cumberland Gap is situated, and the
next range on the southeast which runs parallel with it, is a narrow,
long, very fruitful valley, walled in on either side for a hundred miles
by tall mountains as a City street is by high buildings. It is called
Powell's Valley. In it dwell a simple, primitive people, shut