most of the "upper class" in their numbers, though this was by no means true in this region. The feelings of both Union men and Secessionists were very bitter, and social life was as strongly marked by these divisions as the hostile camps. The number of slaves was comparatively small, but they were the house servants in the towns, and their disposition to assert their liberty added to the social turmoil. The mistress of the house where I lodged hired her cook from a neighbor who claimed the woman as a slave; but the employer found herself obliged to make another bargain with the cook, and to pay her a second wage in order to keep her at work at all. The Unionists of East Tennessee were not yet fully advanced to the emancipation of the slaves as a result of the war. Parson Brownlow had fiercely denounced the Secessionists for arguing that secession was necessary to preserve property in slaves. Our army commanders thought it prudent not to agitate this question, and contented themselves with keeping within the limits of the statutes and the general orders of the War Department, which forbade military interference to return fugitives to the masters or to compel their obedience. The matter was left to work itself out, as it rapidly did. After the first of February the weather became settled and gave us a more favorable opinion of the East Tennessee climate. We had sharp frosts at night with occasional light flurries of snow, but the days were usually bright, it thawed about midday, and the average temperature was such as to make active exercise delightful. The summits of the Great Smoky Mountains were covered with snow, and made a picturesque framing for the natural loveliness of the valleys. The roads were nowhere metalled, and the alternate freezing and thawing made them nearly impassable; but if we had been able to bring forward proper forage and supplies, we should have overcome the other obstacles to active campaigning. As it was, we could only await the approach of spring, when the settling of the roads and the opening of railroad communication with Chattanooga and Nashville would make it possible to bring back from Kentucky and feed our horses which had been sent to the rear.