n the South.
Once let these girls that come under the influence of our Christian
Northern women who go there as teachers, and the graduates of these
various colleges and schools that we have planted, and are about to
plant in the South; once let common womanhood in the South that has been
so much under the heel of this oppression; once let girlhood feel the
power that has come to girlhood, that to them as young women in the
cradle of these hills, under this fair sky, is given the power to turn
over in not less than thirty or forty years this whole country for God
and humanity, for enlightenment and for Christian peace; once let that
idea get into the minds of those girls, and we have not the same problem
that we have to-day.--_Rev. D.M. Fisk._
* * * * *
There were deeds of valor by mountain heroines that shine as brightly as
those of a Molly Stark or Barbara Frietchie. Mrs. Edwards, of Campbell
County, marched 150 miles in inclement weather, over the mountains, to
carry information to Union troops. Immediately upon arriving at home,
having received some valuable information, she pushed her way through
the rain, on horseback, alone, and saved the Union General Spears from
capture. Again and again this same woman took perilous journeys to carry
information to Union officers. Nor was she the only heroine among the
mountain women. During the siege of Knoxville, General Grant desired to
send an important message to General Burnside. "So overrun was the
territory between Chattanooga and Knoxville by Confederate troops that
it could only be delivered, if at all, with great difficulty and hazard.
At length Miss Mary Love, of Kingston, Tenn., agreed to take the message
through the Confederate lines." She got as far as Louisville, Tenn., but
could get no farther. There she found but one person who was willing to
run the risk of taking the message through the lines, and he was a boy
only thirteen years of age, John T. Brown. He carried the dispatch
safely through the lines and delivered it to General Burnside.
Let us build school-houses and churches, where their better cabins have
risen from the ashes of the past. Let us invade their coves and press up
their mountain sides with an army of Christian teachers and preachers,
until the gray old forests that echoed with the shout of these loyal
Highlanders shall again echo with the sound of church bell and school
bell, and they who took from us the
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