government and its cause.

Before the secession of Virginia a very large majority of the
inhabitants of the Kanawha valley were Unionists; but the attachment
to the state organization had become so exaggerated in all
slave-holding communities, that most of the well-to-do people
yielded to the plea that they must "go with their State." The same
state pride led this class of people to oppose the division of
Virginia and the forming of the new State on the west of the
mountains. The better class of society in Charleston, therefore, as
in other towns, was found to be disloyal, and in sympathy with the
rebellion. The young men were very generally in the Confederate
army; the young women were full of the most romantic devotion to
their absent brothers and friends, and made it a point of honor to
avow their sentiments. The older people were less demonstrative, and
the men who had a stake in the country generally professed
acquiescence in the position of West Virginia within the Union, and
a desire to bring back their sons from the Confederate service. The
necessity of strict watch upon the communications sent through the
lines brought to my notice a great deal of family history full of
suffering and anxiety, and showed that that was indeed a fearful
situation for a family when its young men were not only separated
from them by military service in the field, but could only be heard
from by the infrequent chances of communication under flags of
truce, and with all the restrictions and reserves necessary to the
method. The rule I adopted in dealing personally with non-combatants
of either sex was to avoid all controversy or discussion, to state
with perfect frankness but courteously my own attitude and sense of
duty, and to apply all such stringent rules as a state of war
compels with an evenness of temper and tone of dispassionate