FRONTIERSMAN AND SOLDIER 225 



persuade Congress to repeal the antislavery clause of 

 the Ordinance of 1787. In this Southern stream of 

 westward migration three distinct currents were dis- 

 cernible. There were, first, the representatives of old 

 Virginia families moving on parallels of latitude across 

 Kentucky and into Missouri, as fine a race of men as 

 can be found in the world, and always fruitful in able 

 and gallant leaders. In the second place, there were 

 the poor whites, or descendants of the outlaws and 

 indented white servants of the seventeenth century in 

 Virginia; we find them moving across Tennessee into 

 southern Missouri and Arkansas, while some of them 

 made their way into Indiana and the Egyptian dis- 

 trict of Illinois. For the most part these men were 

 an unprogressive, thriftless, and turbulent element in 

 society. Thirdly, the men who, perhaps more than 

 any others, gave to the young West its character were 

 the hardy mountaineers of the Alleghany region. If 

 one were required to give a recipe for compounding 

 the most masterful race of men that can be imagined, 

 one could hardly do better than say, " To a very lib- 

 eral admixture of Scotch and Scotch-Irish with Eng- 

 lish stock, with a considerable infusion of Huguenot, 

 add a trace of Swiss and Welsh, and set the whole 

 to work for half a century hewing down the forest and 

 waging an exterminating warfare with Indians." From 

 their forefathers in the highlands of Britain these sturdy 

 pioneers inherited an appreciation of the virtues of 

 mountain dew, and the westward march of American 

 civilization has been at all times heralded by the rude 

 temples of that freakish spirit, until the placid German 

 has followed in his turn, with the milder rites of Gam- 

 brinus. In religion these men were, for ' the most 

 Q 



