CUMBERLAND GAP. A pass through the Cumberland Mountains on the State line between Kentucky and Tennessee at the southwestern end of Virginia (Map: Kentucky. H 4). It is a notch about 500 feet deep and in some places so narrow as merely to allow room for a roadway. The road between Virginia and Kentucky laid out by Daniel Boone in 1739 passed through Cum berland Gap, and over this toad journeyed most of the early emigrants to Kentucky. During the Civil War the Gap was of great strategic im portance, constituting as it did a kind of pas sageway between central Kentucky and eastern and central Tennessee. It was occupied by the Confederate General Zollieoffer, on .November 13, 1s+61, but on June 17, 1862. the Confederates withdrew' on the approach of a superior Federal force under Gen. G. IV. Morgan. who took pos session on the following day and immediately began to strengthen the fortifications. Various
minor skirmishes occurred in the vicinity, in the most important of which, that of August 7, the Omfederates lost 125 men in killed and wounded. the Federal: 68 in killed. wounded. and missing. On the night of September 17 Morgan secretly evacuated the plain, destroyed the fort ifi eations and the war material, and by a skillful retreat saved his complaind from capture at the hands of the superior Confederate farces in the vicinity. On October 22d General Bragg occu pied the Cap. On September S. 1863. the place again passed into the hands of the Federals un der General Shackelford, the Confederate Gen eral Frazer surrendering, without resistance, 2000 men and 14 pieces of artillery; and here on April 28. 1865, 900 Confederates surrendered and Were paroled.