Cumberland Gap became the principal passage between the eastern and western theaters of operation in the Upper South during the war. Whichever side held the high ground here held the Gap.
In 1861, Confederate Gen. Felix K. Zollicoffer's men occ…
"If you come through this misery alive... I want you to do something for all those mountain people who have been shut out of the world all these years." These words of President Abraham Lincoln to General O. O. Howard in 1863 proved to be the cata…