What we saw of Western Virginia and its inhabitants left anything but a favorable impression on our minds.  The country is wild and romantic, but good for little or nothing for farming purposes.  The houses are mostly built of logs, being little more than mere huts, and around each of these ‘mansions’ may be seen at least a dozen young ‘tow-heads,’ who are brought up in ignorance and filth.  The inhabitants are lazy and ignorant, raising hardly enough to keep starvation from their doors.  School houses are almost unknown; we did not see one in the whole course of our march; the consequence is, not more than one in ten of the population can read or write.  And the few who ’can just make out to spell’ are worse off than their more ignorant brethren.

  ‘A little learning is a dangerous thing.’

And these people know just enough to make them dangerous.  They have read in some of their county newspapers that Vice-President Hamlin is a negro, and that Lincoln is waging this war for the purpose of liberating the slaves and killing their masters.  This they believe, and any amount of reasoning cannot convince them to the contrary.  It seems to be enough for them to know that they are Virginians; upon this, and this alone, they live and have their being.  They are by far the most wretched and degraded people in America,—­I had almost said in the world.  The women, if possible, are worse than the men; they go dressed in a loose, uncouth manner, barefooted and bareheaded; their principal occupation is chewing tobacco and plundering Union troops by getting ten prices for their eggs, butter, and corn bread.  And these are the people our children—­and their fathers before them—­have been taught to regard as the true chivalry of America!  The people of the United States are beginning to see that Virginia and her sons have been greatly over-estimated.  That Virginia has produced true and great men, no one will deny.  There are a few such still within her borders; but, taking her as a whole, the picture I have drawn is a true one.

By my soldiering experience I learned some things which it would have been impossible to learn had I never ‘gone for a soger.’  First, I ascertained—­shall I say from my personal experience?—­that a man dressed in soldier-clothes can stand twice as much bad liquor as one clothed in the garb of a citizen.  Secondly, that to be a good soldier a man should be able to go at least forty-eight hours without eating, drinking, or sleeping, and then endure guard-duty all night in a drenching rain, without grumbling or fault-finding.  Thirdly, I think I have discovered that the martial road to glory ’is a hard road to travel.’

* * * * *

A CABINET SESSION.

The President:  Secretaries Seward, Chase, Bates, Smith, Blair and Welles.  Enter Mr. Stanton.

Mr. Lincoln. Gentlemen, I officially present Mr. Stanton!