Virginia Free Press

The Shenandoah Valley - In the North, during the war, this Valley was appropriately called the 'Granary of the Confederacy,' and, therefore, all the deadly machinery that the inventive genius of the eternal Yankee nation could summon in aid of victory was hurled against her to desolate her rich and fruitful places. It is in no spirit of complaint that we make this statement, for the unhappy strife is over and once more emblems of peace and good-will cover the country with gladness and prosperity from Bangor to New Orleans, from the mouth of the Columbia River to the Coral Reefs of Florida. We do make it to call the attention of the Country to the fact that the great natural resources that the Creator has given us in a few years enabled our people to obliterate every vestige of Sheridan's Ride, to bury under blowing harvests the grim spectre of want, and the bad passions begotten by the war.

There is no territory under the sun of equal area that is so richly blessed. Our creeks are fed by eternal springs, and are so distributed in our whole extent that their bounty is a common offering. Our lands yield bountiful returns in all the crops that are known in the temperate latitudes. Corn, Wheat, Timothy, Blue-Grass, Clover, Oats, Rye, Barley—all develop with a security and fruitfulness that is not elsewhere known on the Continent. Horses, Cattle and Sheep develop stronger bone and more physical endurance, size, and consequent productiveness, than in any country with which we are acquainted.

Our valleys and mountains meet everywhere in a loving embrace, and cover us with a flood of beauty, that make poets and heroes of our men, and mantle the brows of our maidens with a spirit of enchantment that is more efficient in the conquest of our Northern neighbors than the thunders of Jackson's almost invincible host. In short, there is nothing good that anybody else has that we do not have as our inheritance, or anything bad in climate or morals that does not perish before it can obtain a foothold.