their homes, they found
they were not satisfied with the farm, the store, or the work-shop of
the villages, but wanted larger fields. The mines of the mountains
first attracted them; but afterwards they found that rich valleys and
productive grazing and farming lands were there. This territory, the
geography of which was not known to us at the close of the rebellion, is
now as well mapped as any portion of our country. Railroads traverse it
in every direction, north, south, east, and west. The mines are worked.
The high lands are used for grazing purposes, and rich agricultural
lands are found in many of the valleys. This is the work of the
volunteer. It is probable that the Indians would have had control of
these lands for a century yet but for the war. We must conclude,
therefore, that wars are not always evils unmixed with some good.

Prior to the rebellion the great mass of the people were satisfied to
remain near the scenes of their birth. In fact an immense majority of
the whole people did not feel secure against coming to want should they
move among entire strangers. So much was the country divided into small
communities that localized idioms had grown up, so that you could almost
tell what section a person was from by hearing him speak. Before, new
territories were settled by a "class"; people who shunned contact with
others; people who, when the country began to settle up around them,
would push out farther from civilization. Their guns furnished meat,
and the cultivation of a very limited amount of the soil, their bread
and vegetables. All the streams abounded with fish. Trapping would
furnish pelts to be brought into the States once a year, to pay for
necessary articles which they could not raise--powder, lead, whiskey,
tobacco and some store goods. Occasionally some little articles of
luxury would enter into these purchases--a quarter of a pound of tea,
two or three pounds of coffee, more of sugar, some playing cards, and if
anything was left over of the proceeds of the sale, more whiskey.

Little was known of the topography of the country beyond the settlements
of these frontiersmen. This is all changed now. The war begot a spirit
of independence and enterprise. The feeling now is, that a youth must
cut loose from his old surroundings to enable him to get up in the
world. There is now such a commingling of the people that particular
idioms and pronunciation are no longer localized to any gr