68 The Winning of the West 



of means who had been impoverished by the long- 

 continued and harassing civil war. Straitened in 

 circumstances, desirous of winning back wealth and 

 position, they cast longing eyes toward the beauti 

 ful and fertile country beyond the mountains, deem 

 ing it a place that afforded unusual opportunities 

 to the man with capital, no less than to him whose 

 sole trust was in his own adventurous energy. 



Most of the gentle folks in Virginia and the 

 Carolinas, the men who lived in great roomy houses 

 on their well-stocked and slave-tilled plantations, 

 had been forced to struggle hard to keep their 

 heads above water during the Revolution. They 

 loyally supported the government, with blood 

 and money; and at the same time they endeavored 

 to save some of their property from the general 

 wreck, and to fittingly educate their girls, and those 

 of their boys who were too young to be in the army. 

 The men of this stamp who now prepared to cast 

 in their lot with the new communities formed an ex 

 ceptionally valuable class of immigrants; they con 

 tributed the very qualities of which the raw settle 

 ments stood most in need. They had suffered for no 

 fault of their own; fate had gone hard with them. 

 The fathers had been in the Federal or Provincial 

 congresses, the older sons had served in the Conti 

 nental line or in the militia. The plantations were 

 occasionally overrun by the enemy; and the general 

 disorder had completed their ruin. Nevertheless, the 

 heads of the families had striven to send the younger 

 sons to school or college. For their daughters they 



