el; apples and peaches, rarely more than 10 cents
at the stills. These were the only crops that could be grown in their
deep and narrow valleys. Transportation was so difficult, and markets so
remote, that there was no way to utilize the surplus except to distill
it. Their stills were too small to bear the cost of government
supervision. The superior officers of the Revenue Department
(collectors, marshals, and district-attorneys or commissioners) were
paid only by commissions on collections and by fees. Their subordinate
agents, whose income depended upon the number of stills they cut up and
upon the arrests made, were, as a class, brutal and desperate
characters. Guerrilla warfare was the natural sequence."

CHAPTER VIII

"BLOCKADERS" AND "THE REVENUE"

Little or no attention seems to have been paid to the moonshining that
was going on in the mountains until about 1876, owing, no doubt, to the
larger game in registered distilleries. In his report for 1876-7, the
new Commissioner of Internal Revenue called attention to the illicit
manufacture of whiskey in the mountain counties of the South, and urged
vigorous measures for its immediate suppression.

"The extent of these frauds," said he, "would startle belief. I can
safely say that during the past year not less than 3,000 illicit stills
have been operated in the districts named. Those stills are of a
producing capacity of 10 to 50 gallons a day. They are usually located
at inaccessible points in the mountains, away from the ordinary lines of
travel, and are generally owned by unlettered men of desperate
character, armed and ready to resist the officers of the law. Where
occasion requires, they come together in companies of from ten to fifty
persons, gun in hand, to drive the officers out of the country. They
resist as long as resistance is possible, and when their stills are
seized, and they themselves are arrested, they plead ignorance and
poverty, and at once crave the pardon of the Government.

"These frauds had become so open and notorious ... that I became
satisfied extraordinary measures would be required to break them up.
Collectors were ... each authorized to employ from five to ten
additional deputies.... Experienced revenue agents of perseverance and
courage were assigned to duty to co-operate with the collectors. United
States marshals were called upon to co-operate with the collectors and
to arrest all persons known to have violated the laws,